Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - VII. Sunlight
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144 DAYS IN THE SUN
ings of piety the Andalusian may have do not lie in
this quarter.
Even if he did have feelings in this connection, he
might do no better than did Beppa. Since the last
time I had seen her, life had dealt so hardly with her
that she had attempted to seek consolation by her hus-
band’s grave—‘but one ought never to do that.” For
although she had paid her good money for the grave at
the time, it transpired when she revisited it that the
parish had meantime sold it to another family and
thrown her husband’s remains into the boneyard.
“And there was I kneeling and singing my song of
lamentation, to a strange man, thinking it was my hus-
band,” was her smiling conclusion.
The Andalusian has no predilection for a cult of the
dead or of graves; but he is much concerned with his
cult of life. As far as the eye cam see; there idia
golden flutter of butterflies’ wings playing carefree up
to the wall of the cemetery, and occasionally even en-
tering its grounds. The child of the sun does not al-
ways shun the habitations of the dead. At times he
will gather his relatives and they will trudge along to
the cemetery with their wine, their lunch-baskets, and
their castanets, to celebrate a little bacchanale on the
graves of their loved ones. In several localities the
authorities were obliged to issue stringent prohibitions
of such a use of the cemeteries. It was therefore quite
reasonable for the young girl whom Beppa had to ar-
ray for her last journey to be given dancing slippers,
powder and castanets—all attributes of the joy of life
—to take to the grave with her.
How strong we northerners are in the presence of
Death! Most of us have defeated him by our cer-
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