Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - VII. Sunlight
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SUNLIGHT : ia
box. Two of them are carrying the coffin and stand
ready to relieve the others. When they change bearers
the coffin is set down on the bare soil, right in the filth
of the shadowy pathway, and the corpse lies there un-
covered, staring coldly at the sky. People gaze at it
as they pass by and indulge in careless observations,
and the mud kicked up by their donkeys’ hoofs is
splashed into the dead man’s face. The hot sun makes
his cold skin steam. Again the procession ascends, a
jerky, dilapidated funeral procession of filthy wretches,
with their loud yells, their breath stinking of alcohol
and garlic. When they arrive at the churchyard the
corpse is again set down on the ground to wait—often
for hours—for the few relatives whose presence is to
lend solemnity to the occasion. Surely the dead man
will have time now. He never hurried very much
when he was alive.
One day, as we passed by the cemetery, a coffin was
standing in the middle path. From a distance it looked
like a box filled with flowers. It gave us something of
a chill to find the flowers transformed into a small
child-like corpse, its eyes half opened and its cheeks
tinged red, neatly dressed as if for a festival. And it
was alone! There were no other persons present than
the merry youngsters who had borne the child up hill
and were now playing tag and amusing themselves with
the coffin-lid.
In front of the cemetery gate we met two black-clad
ladies, the eyes of one of them red with weeping.
Farther down hill on the road, near a closed carriage,
a gentleman was walking up and down restlessly read-
ing a newspaper. His grief-stricken appearance, in the
situation, indicated that it was the father who was here
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