“The Dead left, once more accompanied with the certain formality that numbed the senses. That of him which answered to a name and number in the society of laws was lowered into his first real estate. (…) And earth to Paul became flesh of dirt, and burial deep was cold rank to his heart. He carried his father's life, and every granule of earth that planted his father tighter beneath the footsteps of the living , he felt upon himself… earth on his body, earth suffocating his mouth and earth crushing his soul. Earth was a terrible thing, a solid dead-live sea of clay and stems, a brown foundation vastness hysterically firm. And now a still man, dignified by death, was oppressed into its womb of soil. The damp rose from the mud and up Paul's straight thin limbs.”