“I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord—” The words broke the absolute silence with the force of a trumpet, though they were spoken in a very quiet voice. It seemed to Grace as if in that sudden moment something burst apart inside her. The tears she had not shed until now, had not expected to shed, broke from deep down inside her and flooded her eyes so she could not see, fumbling for a handkerchief, hardly hearing what came next. “We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.” One part of her was aware how cleverly Dr. Willoughby was cutting the burial service so that any reference to “the appointed time” was eliminated. But another part of her knew only the pain and the blessing of the opening words, the longing to believe them true, the strange consolation of them, though she could not affirm their truth, and then she knew, with the force of an actual wound, her own intolerable loneliness. She was ashamed of the sobs she held back by sheer force of will, the terror that one would resound in the church like some animal cry, as she felt Mrs. Brimmer stirring uneasily beside her and looked in vain (she could not see at all) for at least Fosca’s head somewhere, some point d’appui.

For many people in the church that day, there was no way to communicate. There was only the separation. Goldberg, sitting stiffly in the usher’s pew, the only Jew among them, held himself forcibly apart.

“So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the Law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ—”