Читать книгу Look Homeward, Angel. A Story of the Buried Life онлайн
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They went home immediately. At every station Gant and Eliza made restless expeditions to the baggage-car. It was grey autumnal November: the mountain forests were quilted with dry brown leaves. They blew about the streets of Altamont, they were deep in lane and gutter, they scampered dryly along before the wind.
The car ground noisily around the curve at the hill-top. The Gants descended: the body had already been sent on from the station. As Eliza came slowly down the hill, Mrs. Tarkinton ran from her house sobbing. Her eldest daughter had died a month before. The two women gave loud cries as they saw each other, and rushed together.
In Gant's parlour, the coffin had already been placed on trestles, the neighbours, funeral-faced and whispering, were assembled to greet them. That was all.
VI
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The death of Grover gave Eliza the most terrible wound of her life: her courage was snapped, her slow but powerful adventure toward freedom was abruptly stopped. Her flesh seemed to turn rotten when she thought of the distant city and the Fair: she was appalled before the hidden adversary who had struck her down.