It was Chichi who notified them with a cry, "Here. . . . Here it is!"
The old folks tried to run, almost falling at every step. All the family
were soon grouped around a heap of earth in the vague outline of a bier,
and beginning to be covered with herbage. At the head was a cross with
letters cut in deep with the point of a knife, the kind deed of some of
his comrades-at-arms--"DESNOYERS." . . . Then in military abbreviations,
the rank, regiment and company.
A long silence. Dona Luisa had knelt instantly, with her eyes fixed on
the cross--those great, bloodshot eyes that could no longer weep. Till
then, tears had been constantly in her eyes, but now they deserted her
as though overcome by the immensity of a grief incapable of expressing
itself in the usual ways.
The father was staring at the rustic grave in dumb amazement. His son
was there, there forever! . . . and he would never see him again! He
imagined him sleeping unshrouded below, in direct contact with the
earth, just as Death had surprised him in his miserable and heroic old
uniform. He recalled the exquisite care which the lad had always given
his body--the long bath, the massage, the invigorating exercise of
boxing and fencing, the cold shower, the elegant and subtle perfume
. . . all that he might come to this! . . . that he might be interred
just where he had fallen in his tracks, like a wornout beast of burden!
The bereaved father wished to transfer his son immediately from the
official burial fields, but he could not do it yet.
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