Only before the elections, all kinds of people come with all kinds of speeches, act neighborly to them, harangue them, urge them, and bribe them,—then there is the election, and everything is quiet again.
The ministrants, with the priest, went inside one of those houses, Lucy stopped. A crowd of women in simple holiday attire were waiting outside. They were conversing in an undertone. A few of them measured Lucy with an eye of mere curiosity.
The priest’s voice was heard within . . . then the clear voices of the ministrants . . . a short song . . . loud sobbing . . . the women piously erossed themselves . . . a mass of people issued from the door . . . musicians, the choir, the sacristan, the priest, the ministrants . . . then the coffin, a black, shining coffin. . . .
A small bell began to ring in the cemetery chapel. The musicians played a funeral march.
Behind the coffin walked a small, decrepit
