"Art thou ready to go to the tomb?" Martha asked, coming to the door of the room. "Soon will the mourners come from Jerusalem and great will the weeping be at the grave of our brother. Where is thy sackcloth?"
"Neither sackcloth nor ashes have I put on. Only to think, come I to this silent room."
"Knowest thou not it is yet unclean?"
"Uncleanness cometh not from the passing out of those we love. Only to keep the Law, observe I the mourning rites. Yet in my quiet do I think."
"Scarce four days is our brother dead and thou art at thy old habit of thinking. Wilt thou never learn thinking is not to tax a woman's time? Wouldst thou take from men their rights?"
"Methinks thinking is proper for whoever hath power to think. Why shouldst not a woman think if by so doing she can find answer to some question that doth perplex her heart?"
"Thou dost ever make thy way seem right because of fair speech. But of thy thinking what cometh? Here hast thou sat thinking by the couch of him who lieth in the tomb. Hast thou thought anything that is of service?"
"Whether it is of service I know not. But of my thinking doth it come to me that it is not wisdom to seal the dead in tombs when the breath hath scarce left the body. They carried our brother to the garden and laid him on fresh earth as is done with things unclean. There did they trim his beard and cut his nails and wrap him. And before the sun went down he was put in the tomb behind a great stone that scarce a score of men could roll aside."
"Much thinking and much grieving doth make thee foolish. Know you not that the Jew wanteth not corruption in the house after the sunset? Even the air were not enough to hold the evil spirits that would come of it."
"The Jew hath strange ideas about evil spirits and greatly fears something he knoweth not of. Thus doth fear early seal the dead in the tomb—and perhaps they are not dead."