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Page 34
Although it was perfectly clear that Mr. Shimerda had killed himself, Jake
and the coroner thought something ought to be done to Krajiek because he
behaved like a guilty man. He was badly frightened, certainly, and perhaps
he even felt some stirrings of remorse for his indifference to the old
man's misery and loneliness.
At supper the men ate like vikings, and the chocolate cake, which I had
hoped would linger on until tomorrow in a mutilated condition, disappeared
on the second round. They talked excitedly about where they should bury
Mr. Shimerda; I gathered that the neighbours were all disturbed and shocked
about something. It developed that Mrs. Shimerda and Ambrosch wanted the
old man buried on the southwest corner of their own land; indeed, under the
very stake that marked the corner. Grandfather had explained to Ambrosch
that some day, when the country was put under fence and the roads were
confined to section lines, two roads would cross exactly on that corner.
But Ambrosch only said, `It makes no matter.'
Grandfather asked Jelinek whether in the old country there was some
superstition to the effect that a suicide must be buried at the
cross-roads.
Jelinek said he didn't know; he seemed to remember hearing there had once
been such a custom in Bohemia. `Mrs. Shimerda is made up her mind,' he
added. `I try to persuade her, and say it looks bad for her to all the
neighbours; but she say so it must be. "There I will bury him, if I dig
the grave myself," she say. I have to promise her I help Ambrosch make the
grave tomorrow.'
Grandfather smoothed his beard and looked judicial. `I don't know whose
wish should decide the matter, if not hers. But if she thinks she will
live to see the people of this country ride over that old man's head, she
is mistaken.'
XVI
MR. SHIMERDA LAY DEAD in the barn four days, and on the fifth they buried
him. All day Friday Jelinek was off with Ambrosch digging the grave,
chopping out the frozen earth with old axes. On Saturday we breakfasted
before daylight and got into the wagon with the coffin. Jake and Jelinek
went ahead on horseback to cut the body loose from the pool of blood in
which it was frozen fast to the ground.
When grandmother and I went into the Shimerdas' house, we found the
womenfolk alone; Ambrosch and Marek were at the barn. Mrs. Shimerda sat
crouching by the stove, Antonia was washing dishes. When she saw me, she
ran out of her dark corner and threw her arms around me. `Oh, Jimmy,' she
sobbed, `what you tink for my lovely papa!' It seemed to me that I could
feel her heart breaking as she clung to me.
Mrs. Shimerda, sitting on the stump by the stove, kept looking over her
shoulder toward the door while the neighbours were arriving. They came on
horseback, all except the postmaster, who brought his family in a wagon
over the only broken wagon-trail. The Widow Steavens rode up from her farm
eight miles down the Black Hawk road. The cold drove the women into the
cave-house, and it was soon crowded. A fine, sleety snow was beginning to
fall, and everyone was afraid of another storm and anxious to have the
burial over with.
Grandfather and Jelinek came to tell Mrs. Shimerda that it was time to
start. After bundling her mother up in clothes the neighbours had brought,
Antonia put on an old cape from our house and the rabbit-skin hat her
father had made for her. Four men carried Mr. Shimerda's box up the hill;
Krajiek slunk along behind them. The coffin was too wide for the door, so
it was put down on the slope outside. I slipped out from the cave and
looked at Mr. Shimerda. He was lying on his side, with his knees drawn up.
His body was draped in a black shawl, and his head was bandaged in white
muslin, like a mummy's; one of his long, shapely hands lay out on the black
cloth; that was all one could see of him.
Mrs. Shimerda came out and placed an open prayer-book against the body,
making the sign of the cross on the bandaged head with her fingers.
Ambrosch knelt down and made the same gesture, and after him Antonia and
Marek. Yulka hung back. Her mother pushed her forward, and kept saying
something to her over and over. Yulka knelt down, shut her eyes, and put
out her hand a little way, but she drew it back and began to cry wildly.
She was afraid to touch the bandage. Mrs. Shimerda caught her by the
shoulders and pushed her toward the coffin, but grandmother interfered.
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