In the landau--which gave ample space for their knees--sat the same
quartette that had shared a cab to Lazarus's wedding, except that
Salvina was replaced by Kitty. That ever young and beautiful person
was the only member of the family who had the air of having fallen in
the world, for despite that Salvina's great prize was now added to Mr.
Brill's capital (he being the legal heir), he had refused to set up a
groom in addition to a carriage. A coachman, he insisted, was all that
was necessary. It was the same tone that he had taken about the
horsehair sofa, and it helped Mrs. Brill to feel that her husband was
unchanged, after all.
Arrived on the ground, the Brills found a gathering of the Jonases,
reconciled by death and riches. Others were to arrive, and the party
distributed itself about the cemetery with an air of conscious
incompleteness. Old Jonas shook hands cordially with Lazarus, and
wiped away a tear from under his green shade. A few of Salvina's
fellow-teachers had obeyed the notification of the advertisement in
the Jewish papers, and were come to pay the last tribute of respect.
The men wore black hat-bands, the women crape, which on all the nearer
relatives already showed signs of wear. And among all these groups,
conversing amiably of this or that in the pleasant October sunshine,
the genteel stone-mason insinuated himself, pervading the gathering.
His breast was divided between anxiety as to whether the parents would
like the tombstone, and uncertainty as to whether they would pay on
the spot.
"Have you seen the stone? What do you think of it?" he kept saying to
everybody, with a deferential assumption of artistic responsibility;
though, as it was a handsome granite stone, the bulk of the chiselling
had been done in Aberdeen, for the sake of economy, whilst the stone
was green, and his own contribution had been merely the Hebrew
lettering. One by one, under the guidance of the artist, the groups
wandered toward the tombstone, and a spectator or two admiringly
opened negotiations for future contingencies. An old lady who knew the
stonemason's sister-in-law strove to make a bargain for her own
tombstone, quite forgetting that the money she was saving on it would
not be enjoyed by herself.
"What will you charge _me_?" she asked, with grotesque coquetry. "I
think you ought to do it cheaper for _me_."
And in the House of the Priests the minister in charge of the
ceremonial impatiently awaited the late comers, that he might intone
the beautiful immemorial Psalms. He had made a close bargain with the
cabman, and was anxious not to set him grumbling over the delay; apart
from his desire to get back to his pretty wife, who was "at home" that
afternoon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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