Above the heart-shaped opening are the following words in painted
letters: "This is the head of ---- ----, deceased on such and such a
day, in such and such a year." These heads belonged to persons of a
certain standing, and one would be considered an ungrateful son if,
after seven years, he did not give his parents' skulls the luxury of one
of these little black boxes. The remainder of the bodies is thrown into
the bone-house, and twenty-five years afterwards the heads are sent to
join them. A few years ago they tried to abolish the custom; but a riot
ensued and the practice continued.
Perhaps it is wicked to play with those round skulls which once
contained a mind, with those empty circles in which passion throbbed.
Those boxes surrounding the ossuary and scattered over the graves, over
the wall and in the grass, without any attempt at order, may appear
horrible to a few and ridiculous to many; but those black cases rotting
even as the bones blanch and crumble to dust; those skulls, with noses
eaten away and foreheads streaked by the slimy trails of snails, and
hollow, staring eyes; those thigh-bones piled up as in the great
charnel-houses mentioned in the Bible; those pieces of skulls lying
around filled with earth, in which a flower springs up sometimes and
grows through the holes of the eyes; even the vulgarity of those
inscriptions, which are as similar as the corpses they identify--all
this human rottenness appeared beautiful to us, and procured us a
splendid sight.
Pages:
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55