Page:The way of Martha and the way of Mary (1915).djvu/233

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At some graves there was boisterous jollity, at others terrible anguish and grief. Near where we sat a woman lay moaning on the grave of her husband, her red tear-washed cheeks and her lips on the earth; and she called to him with sobs, telling him all that had happened during the year, how the children were, how often they had thought of him. It was heart-rending to listen to her. And yet, mingled with her terrible lament, came the sound of mumbling priests, the buzz of conversation, the laughter of children wrestling among the graves and gambling in the eggs that had been given them, the tinkle of the guitar and of light songs, the strains of the concertina.

We walked by winding ways across the graveyard and saw many an old man and woman knocking at the door of the earth they would soon enter, dropping placid tears and thinking what it would be like some years hence when they would be under the earth and this festive crowd of live beings above, candle-lighting, feasting, singing, thinking, praying. And there were young men and women walking arm-in-arm, looking brightly into one another's eyes, strengthening their bonds of love and of life. There were also little children, boys and girls, thoughtless, indifferent to death and to the dead, waiting for the older people to go away, so that they might forage among the graves and dig up again the red and blue eggs that had been buried there.