The Funeral

to Ernesto de Martino Before, if there was a funeral in town, the band would follow, and so did with his rakes Domenico the Dwarf. I can still hear the deep sound of the saxhorn cut clean as with an ax by the crash of cymbals that lengthened quivering to weep in the white thin voices of the clarinets. Now everything has changed even if the change's been slow, but the priests are still around and the sextons with the cross walking behind young boys in a long row holding small moon-yellow iron crowns. They carry the casket on their shoulders and the peasants' feet trundle like lead in their heavy shoes and hobnailed heels: they make the sound that country wagons make, when they come out at night, in the light rain, and like pelted stones violently wrench the luckless rich people from their sleep.