Chapter 10

There were two upright shovels¹ with their blades in the large pile of earth to one side of the grave. He had thought they had been left there by the gravediggers, who would use them later to fill the grave. He had imagined that, as at his mother's funeral, each mourner would step up to the hole to throw a clump³ of dirt onto the coffin⁴'s lid, after which they would all depart for their cars. But his father had requested of the rabbi the traditional Jewish rites⁵, and those, he now discovered, called for burial by the mourners and not by employees of the cemetery⁶ or anyone else. The rabbi had told Howie beforehand, but Howie, for whatever reason, hadn't told him, and so he was surprised now when his brother, handsomely dressed in a dark suit, a white shirt, a dark tie, and shining black shoes, walked over to pull one of the shovels out of the pile, and then set out to fill the blade until it was brimming with dirt. Then he walked ceremoniously to the head of the grave, stood there a moment to think his thoughts, and, angling the shovel² downward a little, let the dirt run slowly out. Upon landing on the wood cover of the coffin, it made the sound that is absorbed into one's being like no other. Howie returned to plunge⁷ the blade of the shovel into the crumbling⁸ pyramid of dirt that stood about four feet high. They were going to have to shovel that dirt back into the hole until his father's grave was level with the adjacent cemetery grounds.

It took close to an hour to move the dirt. The elderly among the relatives and friends, unable to wield⁹ a shovel, helped by throwing fistfuls of dirt onto the coffin, and he himself could do no more than that, and so it fell to Howie and Howie's four sons and his own two — the six of them all strapping¹⁰ men in their late twenties and early thirties — to do the heavy labor¹¹. In teams of two they stood beside the pile and, spadeful by spadeful, moved the dirt from the pile back into the hole. Every few minutes another team took over, and it seemed to him, at one point, as though this task would never end, as though they would be there burying his father forever. The best he could do to be as immersed in the burial's brutal¹² directness as his brother, his sons, and his nephews was to stand at the edge of the grave and watch as the dirt encased the coffin. He watched till it reached the lid, which was decorated only with a carving¹³ of the Star of David, and then he watched as it began to cover the lid. His father was going to lie not only in the coffin but under the weight of that dirt, and all at once he saw his father's mouth as if there were no coffin, as if the dirt they were throwing into the grave was being deposited straight down on him, filling up his mouth, blinding his eyes, clogging¹⁴ his nostrils¹⁵, and closing off his ears. He wanted to tell them to stop, to command them to go no further — he did not want them to cover his father's face and block the passages through which he sucked in life. I've been looking at that face since I was born — stop burying my father's face! But they had found their rhythm, these strong boys, and they couldn't stop and they wouldn't stop, not even if he hurled¹⁶ himself into the grave and demanded that the burial come to a halt. Nothing could stop them now. They would just keep going, burying him, too, if that was necessary to get the job done. Howie was off to the side, his brow covered with sweat, watching the six cousins athletically¹⁷ complete the job, with the goal in sight shoveling at a terrific pace, not like mourners assuming the burden of an archaic¹⁸ ritual but like old-fashioned workmen feeding a furnace with fuel.

Many of the elderly were weeping now and holding on to each other. The pyramid of dirt was gone. The rabbi stepped forward and, after carefully smoothing the surface with his bare hands, used a stick to delineate in the loose soil the dimensions of the grave.

He had watched his father's disappearance¹⁹ from the world inch by inch. He had been forced to follow it right to the end. It was like a second death, one no less awful than the first. Suddenly he was remembering the rush of emotion that carried him down and down into the layers of his life when, at the hospital, his father had picked up each of the three infant grandchildren for the first time, pondering Randy, then later Lonny, then finally Nancy with the same expressive²⁰ gaze of baffled delight.

"Are you all right?" Nancy asked, putting her arms around him while he stood and looked at the lines the stick had made in the soil, drawn²¹ there as if for a children's game. He squeezed her tightly to him and said, "Yes, I'm all right." Then he sighed, even laughed, when he said, "Now I know what it means to be buried. I didn't till today." "I've never seen anything so chilling in my life," Nancy said. "Nor have I," he told her. "It's time to go," he said, and with him and Nancy and Howie in the lead, the mourners slowly departed, though he could not begin to empty himself of all that he'd just seen and thought, the mind circling back even as the feet walked away.

Because a wind had been blowing while the grave was being filled, he could taste the dirt coating the inside of his mouth well after they had left the cemetery and returned to New York.

1 shovels   

n.铲子( shovel的名词复数 )；锹；推土机、挖土机等的)铲；铲形部份v.铲子( shovel的第三人称单数 )；锹；推土机、挖土机等的)铲；铲形部份

参考例句：

• workmen with picks and shovels 手拿镐铲的工人
• In the spring, we plunge shovels into the garden plot, turn under the dark compost. 春天，我们用铁锨翻开园子里黑油油的沃土。 来自辞典例句

2 shovel   

n.铁锨，铲子，一铲之量；v.铲，铲出

参考例句：

• He was working with a pick and shovel.他在用镐和铲干活。
• He seized a shovel and set to.他拿起一把铲就干上了。

3 clump   

n.树丛，草丛；vi.用沉重的脚步行走

参考例句：

• A stream meandered gently through a clump of trees.一条小溪从树丛中蜿蜒穿过。
• It was as if he had hacked with his thick boots at a clump of bluebells.仿佛他用自己的厚靴子无情地践踏了一丛野风信子。

4 coffin   

n.棺材，灵柩

参考例句：

• When one's coffin is covered,all discussion about him can be settled.盖棺论定。
• The coffin was placed in the grave.那口棺材已安放到坟墓里去了。

5 rites   

仪式，典礼( rite的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• to administer the last rites to sb 给某人举行临终圣事
• He is interested in mystic rites and ceremonies. 他对神秘的仪式感兴趣。

6 cemetery   

n.坟墓，墓地，坟场

参考例句：

• He was buried in the cemetery.他被葬在公墓。
• His remains were interred in the cemetery.他的遗体葬在墓地。

7 plunge   

v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲

参考例句：

• Test pool's water temperature before you plunge in.在你跳入之前你应该测试水温。
• That would plunge them in the broil of the two countries.那将会使他们陷入这两国的争斗之中。

8 crumbling   

adj.摇摇欲坠的

参考例句：

• an old house with crumbling plaster and a leaking roof 一所灰泥剥落、屋顶漏水的老房子
• The boat was tied up alongside a crumbling limestone jetty. 这条船停泊在一个摇摇欲坠的石灰岩码头边。

9 wield   

vt.行使，运用，支配；挥，使用(武器等)

参考例句：

• They wield enormous political power.他们行使巨大的政治权力。
• People may wield the power in a democracy.在民主国家里，人民可以行使权力。

10 strapping   

adj. 魁伟的, 身材高大健壮的 n. 皮绳或皮带的材料, 裹伤胶带, 皮鞭 动词strap的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• He's a strapping lad—already bigger than his father. 他是一个魁梧的小伙子——已经比他父亲高了。
• He was a tall strapping boy. 他是一个高大健壮的小伙子。

11 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

12 brutal   

adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的

参考例句：

• She has to face the brutal reality.她不得不去面对冷酷的现实。
• They're brutal people behind their civilised veneer.他们表面上温文有礼，骨子里却是野蛮残忍。

13 carving   

n.雕刻品，雕花

参考例句：

• All the furniture in the room had much carving.房间里所有的家具上都有许多雕刻。
• He acquired the craft of wood carving in his native town.他在老家学会了木雕手艺。

14 clogging   

堵塞，闭合

参考例句：

• This process suffers mainly from clogging the membrane. 这种过程的主要问题是滤膜的堵塞。
• And you know that eyewitness that's been clogging up the airwaves? 你知道那个充斥着电视广播的目击证人？

15 nostrils   

鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Her nostrils flared with anger. 她气得两个鼻孔都鼓了起来。
• The horse dilated its nostrils. 马张大鼻孔。

16 hurled   

v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂

参考例句：

• He hurled a brick through the window. 他往窗户里扔了块砖。
• The strong wind hurled down bits of the roof. 大风把屋顶的瓦片刮了下来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

17 athletically   

adv.竞赛地，运动比赛地，具运动员风范地

参考例句：

• Tall, athletically built, but with a slight, shy stoop to his shoulders. 高个子，运动员身材，但有点轻微的水蛇腰。 来自互联网
• She does not hate sports on TV, she is athletically biased. 她不讨厌体育频道，只是对运动有些偏见。 来自互联网

18 archaic   

adj.(语言、词汇等)古代的，已不通用的

参考例句：

• The company does some things in archaic ways,such as not using computers for bookkeeping.这个公司有些做法陈旧，如记账不使用电脑。
• Shaanxi is one of the Chinese archaic civilized origins which has a long history.陕西省是中国古代文明发祥之一，有悠久的历史。

19 disappearance   

n.消失，消散，失踪

参考例句：

• He was hard put to it to explain her disappearance.他难以说明她为什么不见了。
• Her disappearance gave rise to the wildest rumours.她失踪一事引起了各种流言蜚语。

20 expressive   

adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的

参考例句：

• Black English can be more expressive than standard English.黑人所使用的英语可能比正式英语更有表现力。
• He had a mobile,expressive,animated face.他有一张多变的，富于表情的，生动活泼的脸。

21 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。