A cart drawn by oxen appeared and halted in front of the church. It held
a corpse, whose dull white feet protruded from under the winding-sheet
like bits of washed alabaster, while the body itself had the uncertain
form peculiar to dressed corpses. The crowd around was silent. The men
bared their heads; the priest shook his holy-water sprinkler and mumbled
orisons, and the pair of oxen swung their heads to and fro under the
heavy, creaking yoke. The church, in the background of which gleamed a
star, formed one huge shadow in the greenish outdoor atmosphere of a
rainy twilight, and the child who held a light on the threshold had to
keep his hand in front of it to prevent the wind from blowing it out.
They lifted the body from the cart, and in doing so struck its head
against the pole. They carried it into the church and placed it on the
stretcher. A crowd of men and women followed. They knelt on the floor,
the men near the corpse, and the women a little farther away, near the
door; then the service began.
It did not last very long, at least it impressed us that way, for the
low psalmodies were recited rapidly and drowned now and then by a
stifled sob which came from under the black hoods near the door.
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