I was not present at the embalming of the body,--I had not the
strength; but after that I did not leave the dear remains for a
minute, out of fear they might treat him as a thing of no consequence.
How truly awful are those last rites of death,--the whole funereal
paraphernalia, the candles, the misericordia, with the covered faces
of the singers. It still clings to my ears, the "Anima ejus," and
"Requiem aeternam." There breathes from it all the gloomy, awful
spirit of Death. We carried the remains to Santa Maria Maggiore, and
there I looked for the last time at the dear, grand face. The Campo
Santo looks already like a green isle. Spring is very early this
year. The trees are in bloom and the white marble monuments bathed in
sunshine. What an awful contrast, the young, nascent life, the budding
trees, the birds in full song,--and a funeral. Crowds of people filled
the cemetery, for my father was known for his benevolence in Rome as
much as my aunt is at Warsaw. All these people so full of life, as
if reflecting the joys of spring, jarred upon my feelings. Crowds,
especially in Italy, consider everything as a spectacle got up
for their special benefit, and even now their faces betrayed more
curiosity to see a grand funeral than any sympathy. Human selfishness
knows no limit, and I am convinced that even people morally and
intellectually educated, when following a funeral, feel a kind of
unconscious satisfaction that this has happened to somebody else, and
it is not they who are to be interred.
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