As a hawk flew over the sun-reddened belfry-cross, the bird's shadow glided over a memorial stone near the spot where we were sitting, glanced off the corner of the stone, and appeared anew beyond it. And in the watching of this shadow, I somehow found a pleasant diversion.
Went on the Lieutenant:
"I say that a graveyard ought to evince the victory of life, the triumph of intellect and of labour, rather than the power of death. However, imagine how things would work out under my scheme. Under it the record of which I have spoken would constitute a history of a town's life which, if anything, would increase men's respect for their fellows. Yes, such a history as THAT is what a cemetery ought to be. Otherwise the place is useless. Similarly will the past prove useless if it can give us nothing. Yet is such a history ever compiled? If it is, how can one say that events are brought about by, forsooth, 'servants of God'?"
Pointing to the tombs with a gesture as though he were swimming, he paused for a moment or two.
"You are a good man," I said, "and a man who must have lived a good and interesting life."
He did not look at me, but answered quietly and thoughtfully:
"At least a man ought to be his fellows' friend, seeing that to them he is beholden for everything that he possesses and for everything that he contains. I myself have lived—"
Here, with a contraction of his brows, he fell to gazing about him, as though he were seeking the necessary word; until, seeming to fail to find it, he continued gravely:
"Men need to be brought closer together, until life shall have become better adjusted. Never forget those who are departed, for anything and everything in the life of a 'servant of God' may prove instructive and of profound significance."
On the white sides of the memorial-stones, the setting sun was casting warm lurid reflections, until the stonework looked as though it had been splashed with hot blood. Moreover, every thing around us seemed curiously to have swelled and grown larger and softer and less cold of outline; the whole scene, though as motionless as ever, appeared to have taken on a sort of bright-red humidity, and deposited that humidity in purple, scintillating, quivering dew on the turf's various spikes and tufts. Gradually, also, the shadows were deepening and lengthening, while on the further side of the cemetery wall a cow lowed at intervals, in a gross and drunken fashion, and a party of fowls cackled what seemed to be curses in response, and a saw grated and screeched.