The procession arrived disbanded, with stampings of feet and everybody talking of his own affairs.

The hard earth resounded, and many would have liked to have moved about to keep themselves warm.

The gaping hole beside which the coffin was laid was already frozen over, and looked white and stony, like a plaster quarry; and the followers, grouped round little heaps of gravel, did not find it pleasant standing in such piercing cold, whilst looking at the hole likewise bored them.

At length a priest in a surplice came out of a little cottage.

He shivered, and one could see his steaming breath at each _de profundis_ that he uttered.