"I suppose, then, as many of her belongings as will go into the coffin will be buried too, in order to still further impress the neighbours?" I asked—"her feather bed, for instance, and anything else of use and value?"
"No, only what she has on, and the brushes and combs and towels that were used in dressing her."
"How ugly and how useless!" I said with a shiver of disgust.
"It is the custom," was her tranquil reply.
Suddenly an unpleasant thought struck me, and I burst out emphatically,
"Nothing but a shroud is to be put on me."
"Oh no," she said, looking up at me with a face meant to be full of the most reassuring promises of devotion, "the gracious lady may be quite certain that if I am still here she will have on her most beautiful ball dress and finest linen, and that the whole neighbourhood shall see for themselves how well Herrschaften know what is due to them."
"I shall give directions," I repeated with increased energy, "that there is only to be a shroud."
"Oh no, no," she protested, smiling as though she were humouring a spoilt and eccentric child, "such a thing could never be permitted. What would our feelings be when we remembered that the gracious lady had not received her dues, and what would the neighbours say?"
"I'll have nothing but a shroud!" I cried in great wrath—and then stopped short, and burst out laughing. "What an absurd and gruesome conversation," I said, holding out my hand. "Good-bye, Frau Inspector, I am sure you are wanted in that cottage."
She made me a curtsey and turned back. I walked out of the village and through the fir wood and the meadow as quickly as I could, opened the gate into my garden, went down the most sheltered path, flung myself on the grass in a quiet nook, and said aloud "Ugh!"