Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XII
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has been proofread at least once.
(diff)
(history)
Denna sida har korrekturlästs minst en gång.
(skillnad)
(historik)
ivy-clad wall of the town. Above the flowers rose the monuments
of the dead, little marble temples, white figures of angels, and
big, heavy slabs of stone. Moss grew on them and on the
trunks of the cypresses. Here and there a white or red flower
still clung to the camelia trees, but most of them lay brown and
faded on the black earth, exhaling raw, damp fumes. He
remembered something he had read: the Japanese did not like
camelias because they fell off whole and fresh like heads
chopped off.
Jenny Winge lay buried at the farthest end of the cemetery
near the chapel on a grassy slope, covered with daisies. There
were only a few graves. On the border of the slope cypresses
had been planted, but they were still very small, like toy trees
with their pointed green tops on straight brown trunks,
reminding one of the pillars in a cloister arcade. Her grave was
a little way from the others; it was only a pale grey mound of
earth, the grass round it having been trodden down when it was
being dug. The sun shone on it and the dark cypresses formed
a wall behind it.
Covering his face with his hands, Gunnar bent on his knees
until his head rested on the faded wreaths.
The weariness of spring weighted his limbs, the blood flowed
aching with sorrow and regret at every beat of his heavy heart.
Jenny—Jenny—Jenny—he heard her pretty name in
every trill of the birds—and she was dead.
Lying far down in the dark. He had cut off a curl from her
fair hair and carried it in his pocket-book. He took it out and
held it in the sunshine—those poor little filmy threads were
the only part of her luxurious, glossy hair the sun could reach
and warm.
She was dead and gone. There were some pictures of hers
… there had been a short notice about her in the papers.
And the mother and sisters mourned her at home, but the real
Jenny they had never known, and they knew nothing about her
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
