Shimerda had killed himself, Jake
and the coroner thought something ought to be done to Krajiek because he
behaved like a guilty man. He was badly frightened, certainly, and perhaps
he even felt some stirrings of remorse for his indifference to the old
man's misery and loneliness.
At supper the men ate like vikings, and the chocolate cake, which I had
hoped would linger on until to-morrow in a mutilated condition,
disappeared on the second round. They talked excitedly about where they
should bury Mr. Shimerda; I gathered that the neighbors were all disturbed
and shocked about something. It developed that Mrs. Shimerda and Ambrosch
wanted the old man buried on the southwest corner of their own land;
indeed, under the very stake that marked the corner. Grandfather had
explained to Ambrosch that some day, when the country was put under fence
and the roads were confined to section lines, two roads would cross
exactly on that corner. But Ambrosch only said, "It makes no matter."
Grandfather asked Jelinek whether in the old country there was some
superstition to the effect that a suicide must be buried at the
cross-roads.
Jelinek said he did n't know; he seemed to remember hearing there had once
been such a custom in Bohemia. "Mrs. Shimerda is made up her mind," he
added. "I try to persuade her, and say it looks bad for her to all the
neighbors; but she say so it must be.
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