Pepeta began to shout, desirous of inspiring respect in this confusion. "Go away, all of you!" Instead of staying here and bothering people, they ought to take the two poor women away with them, for they were exhausted with sorrow and driven crazy by so much noise.
Teresa objected to abandoning her son even for a short time; she would soon see him no more; they should not steal from her any of the time that remained to her to look upon her treasure. And bursting out into even greater lamentations, she threw herself on the cold corpse, wishing to embrace it.
But the supplications of her daughter and Pepeta's will were stronger, and Teresa, escorted by a great number of women, left the farm-house with her apron over her face, moaning, staggering, heedless of those who pulled her away with them, each one vying with the other as to who should take her home.
Pepeta began to arrange the funeral ceremony. She placed in the centre of the entrance the little white table on which the family ate, and covered it with a sheet, fastening the ends with pins. On it they placed a quilt which was starched and lace-trimmed, and there they placed the little coffin brought from Valencia, a jewel of a coffin which the neighbours admired; a white casket trimmed with gold braid, padded inside like a baby's cradle.
Pepeta took out of a bundle the last finery of the dead child; the shroud of gauze woven of silver thread, the sandals, the garland of flowers, all white, whose purity was symbolic of that of the poor little "Bishop."
Slowly, with maternal care, Pepeta shrouded the corpse. She pressed the cold little body against her breast, introduced into the shroud, with the greatest care, the rigid little arms, as though they were bits of glass which might be broken at the least shock, and kissed the icy feet before putting them into the sandals.
In her arms, like a white dove stiff with cold, she carried Pascualet to the casket; to that altar raised in the middle of the farm-house before which the whole huerta, drawn by curiosity, would defile.
Nor was this all: the best was still lacking, the garland, a bonnet of white flowers with festoons which hung over the ears; a barbaric adornment like those worn by savages at the opera. Pepeta's pious hand, engaged in a terrible struggle with death, stained the pale cheeks a rosy colour; the mouth, blackened by death, she toned up with a layer of bright scarlet, but her efforts to open the weak eyelids wide were vain; they kept falling, covering the dull filmed eyes, eyes without lustre, which had the grey sadness of death.
Poor Pascualet ... unhappy little Bishop! With his grotesque garland and his painted face, he was turned into a ridiculous scarecrow. He had inspired more sorrowful tenderness when his pale little face had been livid in death on his mother's pillow, adorned only with his own blond hair.
But all this did not prevent the good women of the huerta from admiring Pepeta's work enthusiastically. Look at him, ... why, he seemed to be asleep! So beautiful, so pinkly flushed!... never had such a little Abbot been seen before.