A hand
touched me and I drew aside to let a bent woman pass. With her clenched
fists on her breast, and face averted, she advanced without appearing to
move her feet, eager to see, yet trembling to behold, and reached the
row of lights which burned beside the bier. Slowly, very slowly, lifting
up her arm as if to hide herself under it, she turned her head on her
shoulder and sank in a heap on a chair, as limp as her garments.
By the light of the candles, I could see her staring eyes, framed by
lids that looked as if they had been scalded, so red were they; her
idiotic and contracted mouth, trembling with despair, and her whole
pitiful face, which was drenched with tears.
The corpse was that of her husband, who had been lost at sea; he had
been washed ashore and was now being laid to rest.
The cemetery adjoined the church. The mourners passed into it through a
side-door, while the corpse was being nailed in its coffin, in the
vestry. A fine rain moistened the atmosphere; we felt cold; the earth
was slippery and the grave-diggers who had not completed their task,
found it hard to raise the heavy soil, for it stuck to their shovels.
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