The little iron gate of the graveyard, which had been opened quite wide to let the body pass, hung against the wall, half torn from its hinges.  The sunshine slept upon the herbage of the empty expanse, into which the funeral procession passed, chanting the last verse of the Miserere.  Then silence fell.

‘Requiem oeternam dona ei, Domine,’ resumed Abbe Mouret, in solemn tones.

‘Et lux perpetua luceat ei,’ Brother Archangias bellowed.

At the head walked Vincent, wearing a surplice and bearing the cross, a large copper cross, half the silver plating of which had come off.  He lifted it aloft with both his hands.  Then followed Abbe Mouret, looking very pale in his black chasuble, but with his head erect, and without a quiver on his lips as he chanted the office, gazing into the distance with fixed eyes.  The flame of the lighted candle which he was carrying scarcely showed in the daylight.  And behind him, almost touching him, came Albine’s coffin, borne by four peasants on a sort of litter, painted black.  The coffin was clumsily covered with too short a pall, and at the lower end of it the fresh deal of which it was made could be seen, with the heads of the nails sparkling with a steely glitter.  Upon the pall lay flowers:  handfuls of white roses, hyacinths, and tuberoses, taken from the dead girl’s very bed.

‘Just be careful!’ cried Brother Archangias to the peasants, as they slightly tilted the litter in order to get it through the gateway.  ’You will be upsetting everything on to the ground!’

He kept the coffin in its place with one of his fat hands.  With the other—­as there was no second clerk—­he was carrying the holy-water vessel, and he likewise represented the choirman, the rural guard, who had been unable to come.

‘Come in, too, you others,’ he exclaimed, turning round.

There was a second funeral, that of Rosalie’s baby, who had died the previous day from an attack of convulsions.  The mother, the father, old mother Brichet, Catherine, and two big girls, La Rousse and Lisa, were there.  The two last were carrying the baby’s coffin, one supporting each end.

Suddenly all voices were hushed again, and there came another interval whilst the bell continued tolling in slow and desolate accents.  The funeral procession crossed the entire burial-ground, going towards the corner which was formed by the church and the wall of Desiree’s poultry-yard.  Swarms of grasshoppers leaped away at the approaching footsteps, and lizards hurried into their holes.  A heavy warmth hung over this corner of the loamy cemetery.  The crackling of the dry grass beneath the tramp of the mourners sounded like choking sobs.

‘There! stop where you are!’ cried the Brother, barring the way before the two big girls who were carrying the baby’s coffin.  ’Wait for your turn.  Don’t be getting in our legs here.’