But the candle of Eve, shining from the window, guided me, and kept both frost and murk from my heart.
The door stood open, and the cottage lay empty.

I sat down disconsolate.
And as I sat, there grew in me such a sense of loneliness as never yet in my wanderings had I felt.

Thousands were near me, not one was with me! True, it was I who was dead, not they; but, whether by their life or by my death, we were divided! They were alive, but I was not dead enough even to know them alive: doubt WOULD come.

They were, at best, far from me, and helpers I had none to lay me beside them! Never before had I known, or truly imagined desolation! In vain I took myself to task, saying the solitude was but a seeming: I was awake, and they slept--that was all! it was only that they lay so still and did not speak! they were with me now, and soon, soon I should be with them! I dropped Adam's old spade, and the dull sound of its fall on the clay floor seemed reverberated from the chamber beyond: a childish terror seized me; I sat and stared at the coffin-door .-- But father Adam, mother Eve, sister Mara would soon come to me, and then--welcome the cold world and the white neighbours! I forgot my fears, lived a little, and loved my dead.
Something did move in the chamber of the dead! There came from it what was LIKE a dim, far-off sound, yet was not what I knew as sound.

My soul sprang into my ears.