Following the attendant, the old man turns aside from the broad, principal path into a labyrinth of narrow foot-ways winding irregularly in and out among the graves. Here the church-yard loses its formal aspect and becomes pathetic. All kinds of shrubbery overgrow the graves. Some flowers--crimson carnations, pale purple gillyflowers, and yellow asters--are blooming at the feet of strangely-gnarled old juniper-trees. The old man's breath comes short, a sort of greed possesses him, a wild burning longing for the bit of earth where lies buried the joy of his life.
The labouring man with hanging head has reached his goal the first. He is already kneeling beside a grave,--tiny little grave, hardly three feet long, and as yet unprovided with a stone. The man passes his hard hand over the rough earth tenderly, gently, as if he were touching something living. Then he cowers down as if he would fain creep into it himself, and lays his head beside the poor little nosegay on the fresh soil.
"Par ici, monsieur,--here is the grave," calls the attendant.
The old Baron shivers from head to foot.
"Where?"
"Here."
A narrow headstone at the end of another stone lying flat upon the ground and enclosed by an iron palisade fence,--this is all--all! A terrible despair takes possession of the father. He envies the labourer, who can at least stroke the earth that covers his treasure, while he cannot even throw himself upon the grave from which a rusty iron grating separates him.
Nothing which he can press to his heart,--nothing in which he can take a melancholy delight. All gone,--all! A cold tombstone enclosed in a rusty iron grating,--nothing more--nothing!