“People might think you did not want to wear mourning.”
Paul started at this thought and did as he was told. Afterwards he was grieved to have been thus shamed by his brother, and only much later it became clear to him which of them had worn the deepest mourning.
The cemetery lay in the midst of the heath. Three solitary pine-trees indicated it from afar, and along the edge of the wall surrounding it thick thorn-hedges bloomed.
Thither the sad cortege went; the sons followed immediately behind the coffin, the father, with the twins, behind them in a little carriage.
Paul stared straight before him; he thought of the sand through which he was wading—of the wine—of Elsbeth—of his father’s portable chair—and of the heather wreath, which had been half detached from the coffin and was dragging behind.
He resolved to take care that it should not be lowered into the grave with the coffin.
By the grave he felt nothing but a violent burning pain in his temples, and while the vicar was giving the benediction it suddenly occurred to him that instead of the wine he might very well have given beer. Then he had to look after the twins, who in their grief did foolish things, and wanted to spring into the grave after the coffin. He took them in his arms kissed them, and made them lay their heads on his shoulder. They did so, closed their eyes, and breathed as if asleep.
When the first handful of earth was rolling down on the coffin he had a feeling of disgust, as if skittles were being played in his head, and when the bare hillock began to arise, he thought, “To-morrow already there must be some green turf put round it.”
The crowd dispersed, his father was carried back to his carriage, and the three sons walked home. Max and Gottfried spoke in low, solemn tones of their earliest recollections of the dead. But Paul was silent, and thought, “Thank God, they have laid her under the sod!”
A feverish activity was still working in his brain—he had as yet understood nothing, had not wanted to understand—but when he entered the yard which, with its shingle-roofed stable, and with the recent traces of the fire, lay gray and desolate before him, it suddenly came upon him as with a lightning-flash, like a totally new idea, “Mother has gone!”