“You will have to lay out the body,” I said suddenly.
“Leave that to me,” replied Barbe. “It is not a cheerful business, but I know all about it.”
I turned my back on her and her preparations. Barbe possessed the knowledge of the peasant women, who are all, more or less, midwives and undertakers.
She soon came and announced to me, “It is all done, properly now. Nothing is wanting except Holy Water and the decorations, which I can’t find.”
Lerne was so white on his white bed, that they mingled together, and resembled an alabaster sarcophagus, with its effigy on it, and both hewn from the same block of marble. My uncle, with his hair carefully parted, had been clothed in a frilled shirt, and a white tie. His pale hands were clasped together, and held a rosary. A crucifix showed like a star on his breast. His knees and feet stood out under the sheets like sharp snowy hills, very far away.
On the night-table, behind the bowl, in which there was no Holy Water, and in which lay useless a sprinkler of withered boxwood, two candles were burning.
Barbe had turned this piece of furniture into a sort of altar, and I scolded her sharply for this piece of absurdity. She replied that that was the “custom,” and then shut the shutters.
Shadow’s sank into the face of the dead man, thus anticipating the sequel, and creating a premature livor.
“Open the window wide,” I said, “let the daylight in, and the songs of the birds, and the scents of the garden.”
The servant obeyed me, although it was against the “custom”; then, when she had received her instructions from me for the necessary ceremonies, she left me at my wish.