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MG 1 vol 2124 number 282a

2.

there and Undertaker tinkers with a casket. Voices are not lowered: hats are not removed. Y[T]he bodies have ceased to be anything but numbered lay figures. Thee men, living night and day with death, have forced themselves to ignore his presence.

The Embalming Room.

It is mysterious, awful place. Thick steam-clouds limit the vision to a few inches. Through the mist loom up the indistinct contours of nude corpses above which ghoul-like figures bend with eerie implements and vessels.

The Crowd.

Out on the street the people began to assemble hours before. It was a gathering of sign seers rather than of mourners. This was the burial of those who had been so mutilated and charred that identification was rendered impossible. Consequently there was no one who could really take a personal interest in them. Some of the older folk may have come out of motives of sincere sympathy and respect for the dead, but on the whole the crowd was like that which greets a St. Patrick's day procession It reached out for more than a block, pushing and bickering for the vantage points. Women brought their babies. Children skated on the sidewalks Young girls ogles passersby of the opposite set. At times there was a hush of awed expectancy and a few handkerchiefs were furtively drawn; but this emotion was largely self-indulgent and akin to that which is accorded to the tribulations of the persecuted movie heroine. Only the dogs seemed to comprehend the enormous burden of our sorrow. They slink among the coffins, their every movement betraying dejection.