Her father, with the respect due to her grief, asked whether there wasn’t a mid-season overcoat among the deceased’s belongings.
The official physician whose duty it was to ascertain the cause of death called at the deceased’s address and left again immediately, and a priest called and stayed for half an hour.
“My poor friend was an atheist,” Nocera pointed out.
“The deceased does not have to have been a believer,” the priest said, “It’s sufficient if the survivors are believers.”
“I really —”
“Not you, but…”
“Well, how much does it cost?”
“Twenty-five lire for each priest.”
“How many priests are necessary to make a satisfactory show?”
“At least eight.”
“That makes two hundred lire.”
“Then there are the nuns.”
“How much are they?”
“Two lire each with used candles, three lire with new candles.”
“And how many are needed?”
“About a hundred.”
“That makes two hundred lire.”
“But not with new candles.”
“As they have to be lit, it seems to me not to matter very much if they have been lit before.”
“You must add fifty lire for the carpets to lay at the church door.”
“Is that necessary?”
“It’s essential. Then there’s the mass and the benediction.”
“Can’t you give me an all-in price? What’s the least for which you can do it?”
“Mass, benediction and carpets, a hundred lire, not including the priests and nuns.”
“Very well, then.”
“Will you give me something on account of expenses?”
“Will two hundred be enough?”
“Yes.”
“Will you see to everything?”
“Yes. Will four o’clock tomorrow afternoon be all right?”
“Yes, Father. But how can mass be celebrated at four o’clock in the afternoon if it has to be said on an empty stomach?”
“We take it in turn to fast.”
Next the undertaker’s representative arrived to make arrangements for the hearse and the trappings for the horses. Nocera telephoned the cremation society, who sent a representative, and a musician also called.
“I’m the first clarinet in the prize-winning Musica in Testa band, and I can offer you very favorable terms,” the man said. “We have a select repertoire of funeral marches: Gounod, Donizetti, Wagner, Petrella, Grieg and Chopin. We have a worn banner, it’s so worn that you can’t read what’s written on it; it looks like the banner of a charity of which the deceased was a patron and benefactor. Every player has his own special headgear, and for a small supplement he will also wear a sword.”
“What does it come to with the sword?”
“Two hundred lire.”
“Very well, then. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“What about the pieces?”
“What pieces?”
“The pieces of music.”
“You choose them. The best you have in stock.”
Some men arrived with the coffin.
Nocera took out Tito’s green silk pajamas, and the men helped him to put them on the dead man.
Then they put him in the coffin.
“Shall we close it straight away?”
“Yes, unless there’s anything else to put in.”
The hearse was waiting outside the door. The undertaker’s assistants carried down the coffin and put it in the hearse with neatness and precision, and the procession set off. The balconies were full of curious onlookers, and women shopkeepers came to the shop doors and gossiped.
The procession was led by an undertaker’s assistant with moustaches trimmed in the American style.
He was followed by the band, which consisted of
A piccolo,
eight flutes,
two cornets,
two trombones,
percussion group and triangle,
two baritone saxhorns,
and one bass.
Next came the nuns dressed in green.
They looked like a walking salad.
Then came the priests, singing psalms. There were eight of them, but one was lame.
The hearse was very solemn and was adorned with chrysanthemums as soft as ostrich feathers. The horses were in full canonicals.
Then came Maud, in a black veil.
Nocera.
Maud’s father, wearing an overcoat belonging to the dead man. It was a perfect fit.
Then came many women and many men. People Nocera had never seen before.
A number of old women made the sign of the cross when the hearse went by.
A boy on a bicycle rode beside the band with one thigh on the saddle and both legs on the same side, pedaling with one foot only.
Two dogs who were closely examining each other went on doing so.
“It’s the dead man’s sister,” one of the mourners said, referring to Maud.
“His wife.”
“His mistress.”
“Quite good to look at.”
“She has a lovely…”
“And two lovely…”
“She’s old.”
“I don’t think so. About thirty-five.”
“She’s older than that.”
“What does she do?”
“She’s a…”
“Yes, she always has been.”
“And he?”
“He shut one eye.”
“And opened his purse.”
“But he did it with style.”
“Everyone knew about it.”
“Also he’d been in prison.”
“Forged promissory notes.”
“And what did he die of?”
“TB.”
“Syphilis.”
“Really?”
“And a pretty good dose too.”
“The American kind.”
“No doubt he gave it to her.”
“It was she who gave it to him.”
“Really?”
“Everyone knows it.”
“I know the doctor who treated both of them.”
“A fine state of affairs.”
The band, the nuns, the priests, the hearse, the whole procession had stopped. The undertaker’s assistants took the coffin and carried it into the church; then they brought it out again and then took it in again.
The procession set off once more.
Slowly, slowly.
Too slowly.
Funerals ought to be motorized. The deceased should be in a car and the procession on motorcycles. The nuns should be on motorcycles, the band should be on motorcycles, and the relatives, inconsolable at the premature loss, should be on motorcycles too.
Nocera looked back. There were fewer people now, but there were still a great many.
Poor devils who never had a loan of two lire or a word of comfort in the whole of their lives are escorted to the cemetery by a crowd of solicitous people. The most ignorant elementary school teacher is given a funeral oration by the director of education; the lawyer at the local magistrates’ court is given his last farewell by the president of the high court; and the poorest village doctor is mourned as if he were a real loss to science; the solitary individual always to be seen sitting by himself and reading the newspaper on a park bench is accompanied to his “last resting place” by several hundred intimate friends “in sad and orderly procession.”
A living man may still spring surprises on you. He may round on you, harm you, let you down, change his mind and alter his will. But when he’s dead, it’s final, and you know where you are.
A coffin is always followed by the dead man’s close enemies: the husband by his wife’s lover, the man killed in a duel by his opponent, the debtor by his creditors.
The passers-by raised their hats and the procession went on.
“It’s her I’m sorry for.”
“She’ll get over it.”
“Not immediately.”
“As soon as she finds someone else.”
“She’ll already have someone lined up.”
“More than one.”
“Men will go after anything.”