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PART I SAN REVIEW
nodded. On the surface, the dead man with his formal shirt and his
tie and silk lapels and his powdered skin looked so proper; only a little
beneath so-black, Wilhelm thought, so fallen in the eyes.
Standing a little apart, Wilhelm began to cry. He cried at first
softly and from sentiment, but soon from deeper feeling. He sobbed
loudly and his face grew distorted and hot, and the tears stung his
skin. A man ... another human creature, was what first went through
his thoughts, but other and different things were torn from him. What'll
I do? I'm stripped and kicked out . . . Oh Father, what do I ask of
you ? What'll I do about the kids-Tommy, Paul? My children. And
Olive? My dear! Why, why, why-you must protect me against that
devil who wants my life. Then take, take it. Take it from me.
Soon he was past words, past reason, coherence. He could not
stop, because it was as if the source of all tears had suddenly sprung
open within him, black, deep and hot, and they were pouring out and
convulsed his body, bending his stubborn head, bowing his shoulders,
twisting his face, crippling the very hands with which he held the
handkerchief. His efforts to collect himself were useless. The great
knot of ill and grief in his throat swelled upward and he gave in utterly
and held his face and wept.
He, alone of all the people in the chapel was sobbing. No one
knew who he was.
One woman said, "Is that perhaps the cousin from New Orleans
they were expecting?"
"It must be somebody real close to carry on so."
"Oh my, oh my! To be mourned like that," said one man and
looked at Wilhelm's heavy shaken shoulders, his clutched face, the
whitened honey of his hair, with wide, glinting jealous eyes.
"The man's brother, maybe?"
"Oh, I doubt that very much," said another bystander. "They're
not alike at all. Night and day."
The flowers and lights fused ecstatically in Wilhelm's blind wet
eyes, the heavy sea-like music shuddered at his ears. It found him
where he had hidden himself in the center of a crowd by the great
and happy oblivion of tears. He heard it and sank deeper than sorrow,
and by the way that can only be found through the midst of sorrow,
through torn sobs and cries, he found the secret consummation of his
heart's ultimate need.
