But it hardly mattered.
With the fine rain cool against his face and hands, like an added sensitiveness, he walked quickly, his raincoat half unbuttoned, and at the corner of Boylston Street, by the Square, found that his car had already been brought out for him; the man was waiting in it with the door open, stepped out as soon as he saw him. For a moment after entering, he sat still, stared ahead through the delicately misted windshield, looking at nothing, thinking of nothing. He could drive straight to the cemetery. Or he could go first to the house in Reservoir Street, wait till Jones came out, and then precede him to Mount Auburn — which would of course be easy. But he felt indifferent; it was perhaps unnecessary to take so much trouble; there was little, after all, to be gained in seeing Jones emerge from the house to the undertaker’s car, or in knowing whether it would be Jones or the undertaker who would carry the coffin. What did it matter? The thing was nearly finished. It would be enough to get a glimpse of Jones at the cemetery, a final glimpse — and if he went at once there would be plenty of time for the asking of questions and the taking up of a good position.
He drove slowly up Brattle Street against the traffic, switched off the windshield wiper when he noticed that the rain had almost stopped, and for the first time, listening to the loud irregular patter on the car roof, the large drops from trees, began to feel tired. His eyes were heavy and wanted to close, the whole length of his body felt relaxed and remote, his hands lay lightly and reluctantly on the wheel. The thing was dreamlike — everything had a dreamlike sharpness, the heavy immediateness and separateness of objects seen in a fever: the pale hands on the ebony wheel looked more real than his own; and the stopped sound of the windshield wiper was so palpable as to seem audible. The wet houses and fences, the dark rain-soaked trunks of elms, the blackened stems of bushes, went past him with an extraordinarily dense and meaningful solidity, each shape making a sound of its own—whish-whish-whish-whish; and from the total complex of noise made by the car itself each particular item was distinct: the faintly burred hum of the motor, the grazing clink of the key ring against the dash, the click-cluck of the clock, the delicate ticking of the watch on his wrist, the snicker of the wet tires on the slippery road. It was time made intensely audible, time made visible, time solidified in a concrete series of individual shapes — a slow-motion of time, almost in fact a “still.” As if, at a given moment, one could take a cross section of the universe, or slow down life itself to the point at which it was only once removed from death.… Was it that?
He had already decided to leave the car on the opposite side of the street from the entrance, he got out and walked deliberately across the car tracks toward the massive Egyptian gates of gray granite. In the office which adjoined the squat little chapel he leaned against the counter and said:
— A friend of mine, Mr. Karl Jones, is coming here this morning. Could you tell me when he’s expected?
— Mr. Karl Jones? Yes, I think I can tell you.
The man stooped over a table, ran his fingers slowly down a column of names.
— Also I should like to know in just what part of the cemetery—
— Certainly.… I see that we expect the interment to take place before nine. At nine or a little before. As for the other — if you’ll just wait a minute—
Interment!
An open book of grave-certificates lay on the counter, he found he was leaning above it, and began reading the blue certificate which was uppermost, still attached to its stub. Proprietors of the Cemetery of Mount Auburn. Vesper Lot 5000, Grave No. 591. This Certifies that………… of………… by the payment of twenty dollars, the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged, has purchased the right of interment in Grave numbered 591 in the Vesper lot which is owned by the Corporation, and has paid in addition Twenty-five Dollars to be added to the Repair Fund, for perpetual care of the grass. For each interment after the first, etc. Not more than two interments shall be made in the same grave, and the later interment shall be at least three feet below the level of the ground. When any such grave shall have become vacant, etc. Turning the leaf, he read on the back: Received of………… five dollars for grading and sodding Grave No. 591.
Grading and sodding. But how did a grave become vacant?
— Ah, yes, just as I thought; it’s in the Vesper lot, and that’s right at the western side; if you go straight along the front here and turn up Glen Avenue, by the railroad—
— Is it far?
— Oh, no, only a few minutes, it’s just where Glen Avenue meets Vesper—
— Thanks.
A curious idea had occurred to him, he gave a little laugh as he went out and followed a workman with a wheelbarrow along the narrow tomb-lined road, it had occurred to him that it was a very neat and fitting opportunity for buying a grave — why not? And cheap at the price, with grading and sodding thrown in, and perpetual care of the grass. Across the wheelbarrow lay a rake and a hoe, and beside them, nodding in a square box, a dozen little potted plants: destined, no doubt, for somebody’s border — somebody’s counterpane. The workman was whistling softly, but stopped at once as he heard footsteps behind him, looked quickly sidelong as he was overtaken. The nod he gave was guarded, professionally friendly.
The city of the dead. That was what they always called it. And certainly, if one paused to visualize the skeletons underground, all the placid bones lying horizontal in boxes, or amongst tarnished remnants of silver and wood, it was a city of a considerable size, a metropolis. But the whole surface of the earth, if one paused to think of that too, was nothing but a mausoleum: all that living surface was nothing but a rich mulch of death. And this little collection, at Mount Auburn, of the refined dead, the rich dead, the distinguished dead, the pretentious dead, was, if one saw it in due proportion, a very paltry affair. This absurd business of putting them all in one place, collecting them, as if they were rare stamps, or coins, or first editions! As if there weren’t time enough in which to duplicate them! Good God. The world would be the same forever. The same people would be arriving, and being important, and dying, forever. In this vault are deposited the remains of. Here lieth the body of. This stone is erected to the memory of. Here lie the remains of. In memory of. Sacred to the memory of. And they were all alike, in the long view they were all alike, all they ever managed to say was a feeble and stammering “I.” They said this with an air of extraordinary importance and bewilderment, made what they considered to be a unique gesture, and were gone. And then after them came the hordes, the shapeless hordes, the innumerable and nameless hordes, of the others, world without end, who would feel the same importance and make the same unique and imperious gesture. Each in turn would believe that in some extraordinary way he had really produced himself, wrought his own intelligence and power, created his own individuality. Each would say “I have this right,” “I have a right to happiness,” “I have a right to love,” “I must live my own life,” “I have thought this for myself,” “It is I who first felt this, thought this, needed this.” Each would believe himself unique.… And after him again would come, until the dying world was inherited briefly by grasshoppers and ants, the human swarm of others who would say and believe identically the same thing. All the Smiths, the Robinsons — the dead earth would become a tomb, sacred to the memory of the Smiths and Robinsons. And beneath it, like those who lay here now under inscribed stones, or broken columns, or slabs of marble engraved with the hour glass or the serpent, would sleep the whole human race.