Then Uncle Salomon climbed a high ladder—it was the same ladder the sexton climbed to trim the candles in the great chandelier—and took the sun out of the sky. For a moment he held it in the hollow of his hands, as the sexton often did when filling the large lamp with oil, while Johann Traub, the tailor, who stood nearby, donned a white shroud.
It sounded strange to hear Johann speak Hebrew, for Albert knew the tailor was dead and he had only spoken German, and he wondered if all dead people spoke Hebrew. But then Uncle Salomon began to climb down the ladder, with the sun under his arm, and it grew darker and darker—and only a few stars, suspended from the sky by rainbow-colored ribbons, were emitting bits of flashing light, and presently the gorgeous ribbons broke and the stars dropped like live sparks flying out of a chimney on a winter night . . .
It was the voice of God, who was now seated on the box of the colossal van, and lashing the fiery steeds, the van disappeared in a cloud of silvery dust, leaving Albert behind in darkness and in tears. He peered into space, but could see nothing—nothing but an endless stretch of darkness. Finally he began to move aimlessly and wandered and wandered until he reached a freshly dug grave. Leb, the grave-digger, with spade in hand, was in the grave, digging deeper and deeper and singing merrily: “Everybody is dead—everybody is dead!” he hummed in his Westphalian dialect. Then he turned around and said, “Shove him in.”
There was no one else around but himself. Albert wondered to whom the grave-digger was speaking. Presently he noticed a very aged woman, a toothless hag. She stepped forward, holding the head of a man in her apron. Harry shuddered at the sight of the decapitated head and wanted to flee, but could not move. He stood paralyzed. He wanted to cry but his voice was gone. Then the toothless hag flung the head into the grave, gave a fiendish, blood-curdling laugh, and jumped in after it and began to dance. She danced as he had often seen drunken peasants dance—shaking her head from side to side and moving her legs wearily.
“Now I must run—they are coming,” the grave-digger exclaimed and suddenly vanished.
Albert trembled in every limb. He was again alone, with nothing but the open grave before him. The darkness around him seemed impenetrable. He could not see an inch away. Only strange voices of invisible men reached his ears, with the sound of autumn leaves in his ears. Then flashes of lightning came and revealed to him a line of men, in single file, coming through a gap in a ruined wall. He could not see the men’s faces but they wore little crucifixes over their breasts and swayed ornamental containers of frankincense such as he had seen in the Franciscan cloister. The next moment a strange light appeared and he saw himself surrounded by black robed priests, with mitres on their heads, and one of them gave him a sharp cut with a fishing rod and jeered. “Your inheritance!—your inheritance!”