She wondered if anyone realized the courage it had taken to come here. Was Angelina defiant? Was she terribly bitter? Her face, so forlorn, had filled her with compassion. She should never have come to Petaca ... her city friends meant so much to her. Neither man spoke; it was not for them to comment. Manuel admired Lucienne for her love of Raul and her affection for Caterina, and he appreciated the hundreds of kindnesses she had shown him through the years. They had been friends since her girlhood. Her beauty filled him with pleasure. Noticing her black dress, he recalled her recent return from Europe, the hatboxes, suitcases full of gowns and high-heeled shoes ... things she had forgotten for her garden. Anyone who appreciated plants and flowers as much as she appreciated them had a place in his heart. Raul found Lucienne by Caterina's grave, and her black clothes startled him. They shook hands, their eyes lowered; he could not bring himself to look at her; he had merely glimpsed her at the chapel service. "I'm sorry you lost her, Raul," she said. "A lovely girl," he said, as if he had memorized the words. "Such a dear child. I loved her." "She wants you to have Mona," he said. "Mona, her little dog?" she asked, hoping that a few words, any words, might lessen his strain. Such a sad, dark face. Palm fronds laddered the space behind her. "You taught her to collect plants and butterflies." "Did I?" "Now God has taken her...." "I wish I thought so, Raul." "Don't say that," he objected. "You know how I feel, you know what I believe. I can't lie, even at this time." The gentleness of her speech took away its offense. "I wish I could believe in immortality. It would be my comfort too, you know. I need that comfort." Raul fingered his pipe in his pocket. It was not often he resented Lucienne's Teutonic independence, her foreignness, her atheism. Glancing beyond her, he felt the sorrow of his friend Manuel, expressed in his face, stooped shoulders, and bowed head. He looked at the raw burial place, the palms with their tattered greens and browns, fronds over the headstones and markers in this family plot. A mound of vines hid his grandfather's stone, and the same vines in exuberance scrambled toward the newly upturned earth that would cover Caterina. Raul determined to have the cemetery cleaned and properly tended: by the end of the week the graves should be cleared and reornamented with shells. Men were approaching, carrying Don Fernando, who had refused to attend chapel service but who had demanded to be brought to the grave. The men stumbled over roots; Fernando cried out; lizards fled under vines; birds soared away. The Radziwills and de Selvas walked together and Father Gabriel and Angelina followed; then the peasants, like white ants, sifted through the grove. Vicente, ashamed of himself, had hidden in the stable.