“Yes,” they said.
He led them on tiptoe down the aisle of the coffins, and opened a door to a room behind. It was dark. They entered and stood with caught breath. Horse Hines switched on a light and closed the door.
Ben, clad in his best suit of clothes, a neat one of dark gray— black, lay in rigid tranquillity upon a table. His hands, cold and white, with clean dry nails, withered a little like an old apple, were crossed loosely on his stomach. He had been closely shaved: he was immaculately groomed. The rigid head was thrust sharply upward, with a ghastly counterfeit of a smile: there was a little gum of wax at the nostrils, and a waxen lacing between the cold firm lips. The mouth was tight, somewhat bulging. It looked fuller than it ever had looked before.
There was a faint indefinably cloying odor.
The sailor looked with superstition, nervously, with puckered forehead. Then he whispered to Eugene:
“I g-g-guess that’s Ben, all right.”
Because, Eugene thought, it is not Ben, and we are lost. He looked at the cold bright carrion, that bungling semblance which had not even the power of a good wax-work to suggest its image. Nothing of Ben could be buried here. In this poor stuffed crow, with its pathetic bartering, and its neat buttons, nothing of the owner had been left. All that was there was the tailoring of Horse Hines, who now stood by, watchfully, hungry for their praise.
No, this is not Ben (Eugene thought). No trace of him is left in this deserted shell. It bears no mark of him. Where has he gone? Is this his bright particular flesh, made in his image, given life by his unique gesture, by his one soul? No, he is gone from that bright flesh. This thing is one with all carrion; it will be mixed with the earth again. Ben? Where? O lost!
The sailor, looking, said:
“That b-b-b-boy sure suffered.” Suddenly, turning his face away into his hand, he sobbed briefly and painfully, his confused stammering life drawn out of its sprawl into a moment of hard grief.
Eugene wept, not because he saw Ben there, but because Ben had
