It seemed impossible for the scrawny and emaciated child to satisfy
itself. The woman took the breast away and the infant was angry once
more. Its eyes drew up out of sight beneath its overhanging lids. Its
whole body writhed in protest. It was a healthy child, the woman said,
because on the second day it could scream like that.
By and by it grew tired of its rage and went to sleep. It slept with its
lids apart, like a drunken thing, showing its bleared irises. And,
monotonously, vigorously, it drew the air in and out of its mouth. It
seemed angry and merciless even in its sleep.
* * * * *
On the way to the distant cemetery, Laurence rode in the carriage with
his father. Both men were under the illusion that the carriage remained
fixed while the confused faces in the streets were hurried past them
like bright leaves and driftwood torn by some hidden stream.
When the hearse came to a halt near the new-made grave, Mrs. Price, in
the carriage behind them, had to be aroused from a stupor and assisted
to her feet. Her knees shook. She gazed wildly and incredulously about,
and when they were lowering the coffin into the hole, she exclaimed, in
a tone of reproach, "Winnie! My God, Winnie!" as if she expected the
dead woman to rise in response and give some comforting assurance.
Laurence refused to see what was going on. He kept his eyes fixed on the
bright ground, and permitted himself to realize nothing more than that,
though the March day was fresh, the sun was warm on his back.
But as the minister's last words were said, Laurence felt the agitation
of people turning away, and something in him refused to reconcile itself
to the irrevocable thing which had occurred.
Recognizing no one, he walked aimlessly apart among strange graves.
Those who regarded him found in him the same fascination and repugnance
which had pervaded the body as it lay in the coffin. In some way he
seemed to belong to it.
* * * * *
Among the untended graves stood an unpainted kiosk, the dusty stair that
led to it yet littered with leaves of the autumn past. It was a
meaningless thing, empty, like the words on the tombstones--words of
which the earth had already hidden the meaning.
The wind blew very high up the long hillside in the cold, still sun. It
shook the stiff, glossy blades of dry yellow grass, and disturbed the
small, sharp shadows that laced their roots. The bare trees rocked
heavily from the earth, and swung their polished branches together.
On one grave a faded cotton flag drooped under an iron star. By another
was a wreath of tin and wax, white roses and orange blossoms, soiled
and spotted with rust, in a wooden case with a broken glass over the
top. An iron bench had sunk into the ground, and was fixed there with a
leg uplifted in an attitude of resignation. Some blue glass jars were
filled with dried crocus buds and the greenish ooze of the rotting
stems.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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