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As he rode past the graveyard he looked
at the brown hole in the earth where Amedee was to lie, and felt
no horror. That, too, was beautiful, that simple doorway into
forgetfulness. The heart, when it is too much alive, aches for
that brown earth, and ecstasy has no fear of death. It is the old
and the poor and the maimed who shrink from that brown hole; its
wooers are found among the young, the passionate, the gallant-hearted.
It was not until he had passed the graveyard that Emil realized
where he was going. It was the hour for saying good-bye. It might
be the last time that he would see her alone, and today he could
leave her without rancor, without bitterness.
Everywhere the grain stood ripe and the hot afternoon was full of
the smell of the ripe wheat, like the smell of bread baking in an
oven. The breath of the wheat and the sweet clover passed him like
pleasant things in a dream. He could feel nothing but the sense of
diminishing distance. It seemed to him that his mare was flying,
or running on wheels, like a railway train.


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