and the way the flesh was sunken

“God, make us to know he is still with us, still loves us, cares what comes to us, what we do, what we are; so much. O, God ...” She spoke these words sharply, and said no more; and Rufus felt that she was looking at his father, but he did not move his eyes, and felt that he should not know what he was sure of. After a few moments he heard the motions of her lips as softly again as that falling silence in which the whole world snowed, and he turned his eyes from the hand and looked towards his father’s face and, seeing the blue-dented chin thrust upward, and the way the flesh was sunken behind the bones of the jaw, first recognized in its specific weight the word, dead. He looked quickly away, and solemn wonder tolled in him like the shuddering of a prodigious bell, and he heard his mother’s snowy lips with wonder and with a desire that she should never suffer sorrow, and gazed once again at the hand, whose casual majesty was unaltered. He wished more sharply even than before that he might touch it, but whereas before he had wondered whether he might, if he could find a way to be alone, with no one to see or ever know, now he was sure that he must not. He therefore watched it all the more studiously, trying to bring all of his touch into all that he could see; but he could not bring much. He realized that his mother’s hand was without feeling or meaning on his shoulder. He felt how sweaty his hand, and his sister’s arm, had become, and changed his hand, and clasped her gently but without sympathy, and felt her hand tighten, and felt gentle towards her because she was too little to understand. The hand became, for a few moments, a mere object, and he could just hear his mother’s breath repeating, “Good-bye, Jay, good-bye. Goodbye. Good-bye. Good-bye, my Jay, my husband. Oh, Goodbye. Good-bye.” Then he heard nothing and was aware of nothing except the hand, which was an object; and felt a strong downward clasping pressure upon his skull, and heard a quiet but rich voice. His mother was not—yes, he could see her skirts, out behind to the side; and Catherine, and a great hand on her head too, and her silent and astounded face. And between them, a little behind them, black polished shoes and black, sharply pressed trouser legs, without cuffs. “Hail Mary, full of grace,” the voice said; and his mother joined; “the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.