It is no more a father, a wife, a child,
--humanity itself is rising from its dust.
It is impossible to judge of the catholic, apostolic, and Roman faith,
unless the soul has known that deepest grief of mourning for a loved
one lying beneath the pall; unless it has felt the emotions that fill
the heart, uttered by that Hymn of Despair, by those cries that crush
the mind, by that sacred fear augmenting strophe by strophe, ascending
heavenward, which terrifies, belittles, and elevates the soul, and
leaves within our minds, as the last sound ceases, a consciousness of
immortality. We have met and struggled with the vast idea of the
Infinite. After that, all is silent in the church. No word is said;
sceptics themselves _know not what they are feeling_. Spanish genius
alone was able to bring this untold majesty to untold griefs.
When the solemn ceremony was over, twelve men came from the six
chapels and stood around the coffin to hear the song of hope which the
Church intones for the Christian soul before the human form is buried.
Then, each man entered alone a mourning-coach; Jacquet and Monsieur
Desmarets took the thirteenth; the servants followed on foot. An hour
later, they were at the summit of that cemetery popularly called
Pere-Lachaise. The unknown twelve men stood in a circle round the
grave, where the coffin had been laid in presence of a crowd of
loiterers gathered from all parts of this public garden. After a few
short prayers the priest threw a handful of earth on the remains of
this woman, and the grave-diggers, having asked for their fee, made
haste to fill the grave in order to dig another.
Pages:
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160