And they filled the hollows of his casket with flowers; flowers on the white vestment, scattered on the table, piled up in clusters at the ends; the whole plain's luxuriance embraced the child's body, which it had so often seen running along its paths like a bird; enveloped it with a wave of colour and perfume.
The two small brothers gazed on Pascualet astonished, piously, as on a superior being who might take flight at any time; the dog prowled around the catafalque stretching out his muzzle to lick the cold, waxen, little hands, and burst out into an almost human lamentation, a moan of despair which made the women nervous and impelled them to chase the poor beast away with kicks.
At noon, Teresa, escaping almost by main force from the captivity in which her neighbours kept her, returned home. Her mother-love filled her with a feeling of deep satisfaction when she beheld the little fellow's finery; she kissed his painted mouth and redoubled her lamentations.
It was dinner-time. Batistet and the little ones, whose grief did not succeed in killing their appetites, devoured a broken crust, hidden in the corners. Teresa and her daughter had no thought of food. The father, still seated in his rush-chair, smoked cigar after cigar, impassive as an Oriental, turning his back on his dwelling as if he feared to see the white catafalque which served as an altar for his son's body.
In the afternoon, the visitors were more numerous. The women arrived, decked out in holiday attire, and wearing their mantillas for the funeral; the girls disputed energetically as to who should be one of the four to carry the poor little Bishop to the cemetery.
Walking slowly by the edge of the road and avoiding the dust as though it were a deadly danger, some distinguished visitors arrived: Don Joaquín and Doña Josefa, the schoolmaster and the "lady." That afternoon, because of the unhappy event (as he declared), there was no school, as was very evident, from the crowd of bold and sticky boys who slipped into the farm-house, and tired of contemplating the corpse of their erstwhile companion as they picked at their noses, came out to run around on the nearby road or to jump over the canals.
Doña Josefa, in a threadbare woollen dress and a large yellow mantilla, entered the farm-house silently, and after a few pompous phrases caught from her husband, seated her robust self in a large rope-chair and remained as mute as if asleep, in contemplation of the coffin. The good woman, accustomed to hearing and admiring her husband, could not carry on a conversation by herself.
The schoolmaster, who was showing off his short green jacket which he wore on days of ceremony, and his necktie of gigantic proportions, sat down outside by the father's side. His big farmer's hands were encased in black gloves which had grown grey in the course of years, till now they were the colour of a fly's wing; he moved them constantly, desirous of drawing attention to the garments he wore on occasions of great solemnity.
For Batiste's benefit, he brought out the most flowery and high-sounding phrases of his repertory. The latter was his best customer; not a single Saturday had he failed to give his sons the two coppers for the school.
"It's life, Mr. Bautista; resignation. We never know God's plans. Often he turns evil into good for his creatures."