Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/229

 crosses which only just managed to peer into the neighbouring district with their summits ranged along the wall, equally bore witness to the fact. If a dead man could have risen from the grave, he would only have needed to sit astride the cemetery wall and he would have seen his native village and the very house in which he was born, from whatever parish he had been brought hither. Contrariwise, the villagers of any parish could see at a glance the dwelling place of their dead, and visit them in memory.

Moreover, in the cemetery were two modest buildings placed side by side. One with three grated windows; and in that dwelt the gravedigger. One with a single small window without any grating, and there dwelt the bones. It was was quite proper that, on account of the lonesomeness of his dwelling the gravedigger should have his windows grated, in order that no ill-disposed person should break into his house; it would have been quite superfluous to put a grating to the charnel-house; for who would ever think of entering that single window? At one side were a few skulls piled in order and a few unburied shin bones—that was a treasure about which a thief pays scanty heed.

By day mirth and gaiety reigned around the burial ground. People worked afield, conversed, sang, whistled, shouted to one another from field to field, and answered one another from field to field—and sound and speech are the source of all gaiety.