as he continued to stare at his father

Rufus saw these things within a few seconds, and became aware that his mother was picking Catherine up in order that she might see more clearly; he drew a little aside. Out of the end of his eye he was faintly aware of his sister’s rosy face and he could hear her gentle breathing as he continued to stare at his father, at his stillness, and his power, and his beauty. He could see the tiny dark point of every shaven hair of the beard. He watched the way the flesh was chiseled in a widening trough from the root of the nose to the white edge of the lip. He watched the still more delicate dent beneath the lower lip. It became strange, and restive, that it was possible for anyone to lie so still for so long; yet he knew that his father would never move again; yet this knowledge made his motionlessness no less strange. Within him, and outside him, everything except his father was dry, light, unreal, and touched with a kind of warmth and impulse and a kind of sweetness which felt like the beating of a heart. But borne within this strange and unreal sweetness, its center yet alien in nature from all the rest, and as nothing else was actual, his father lay graven, whose noble hand he longed, in shyness, to touch. “Now, Rufus,” his mother whispered; they knelt. He could just see over the edge of the coffin. He gazed at the perfect hand. His mother’s arm came round him; he felt her hand on the crest of his shoulder. He slid his arm around her and felt her hand become alive on his shoulder and felt his sister’s arm. He touched her bare arm tenderly, and felt her hand grapple for and take his arm. He put his hand around her arm and felt how little it was. He could feel a vein beating against the bone, just below her armpit. “Our Father,” she said. They joined her, Catherine waiting for those words of which she was sure, Rufus lowering his voice almost to silence while she hesitated, trying to give her the words distinctly. Their mother spoke very gently.