Then only, and not till then, was he satisfied with his achievements.
The poor woman buried her husband and child the next day in a corner of the garden and covered the little mound with flowers.
There was no one who could have helped her to give them Christian burial. It then became clear to everyone that she had lost her reason. She went about muttering continually, with a remote and strange look in her tearworn eyes, that sometimes looked as if they were blind. She would often sit for hours on the garden dyke beside the grave of her husband and child.
It was extremely sad and pathetic, and heart-rending to see her sitting there, sometimes till late at night, as if she were waiting for the two to come back.
Sometimes she would lie down on the grave, pressing one cheek against the ground, and she would lie a long time like that—sometimes until she fell asleep. If anyone asked her why she lay there she stared vacantly with a pair of bewildered, tear-bright eyes and answered through her sobs that she could hear her little boy crying and calling to her.
IV—"MY LOVELY LITTLE BOY—THEY KILLED HIM"
Every time a convoy of prisoners passed through the village she was seized with restlessness. She was eager and quick in her movements and she stood staring intently at those who passed by.
It seemed as if she were looking for one particular face amongst the many hundreds, but when they had passed by she collapsed again and dragged herself back to the house, or out to the dyke and the mound in the corner of the garden.
Towards evening, on the day that we had entered the village, I was standing outside her house with one of my comrades. She was going about that evening moaning as she had never moaned before. Her hair was hanging in matted strands about her face, and her clothes were nothing but torn rags. It seemed as if she had torn them in her horror.