And This Is Not From
The Survivors Having Had Time To Dissociate The Memory Of The Dead
From Their Well-Remembered Appearance And Form On Earth; For The
Interment Follows Too Speedily After Death, For That:
Almost
always taking place within four-and-twenty hours, and, sometimes,
within twelve.
At Rome, there is the same arrangement of Pits in a great, bleak,
open, dreary space, that I have already described as existing in
Genoa. When I visited it, at noonday, I saw a solitary coffin of
plain deal: uncovered by any shroud or pall, and so slightly made,
that the hoof of any wandering mule would have crushed it in:
carelessly tumbled down, all on one side, on the door of one of the
pits--and there left, by itself, in the wind and sunshine. 'How
does it come to be left here?' I asked the man who showed me the
place. 'It was brought here half an hour ago, Signore,' he said.
I remembered to have met the procession, on its return: straggling
away at a good round pace. 'When will it be put in the pit?' I
asked him. 'When the cart comes, and it is opened to-night,' he
said. 'How much does it cost to be brought here in this way,
instead of coming in the cart?' I asked him. 'Ten scudi,' he said
(about two pounds, two-and-sixpence, English). 'The other bodies,
for whom nothing is paid, are taken to the church of the Santa
Maria della Consolazione,' he continued, 'and brought here
altogether, in the cart at night.' I stood, a moment, looking at
the coffin, which had two initial letters scrawled upon the top;
and turned away, with an expression in my face, I suppose, of not
much liking its exposure in that manner:
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