DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62134#0177
A VISIT TO THE DEAD HOUSE.
169
When I neared the cloistered wall which separated the
old from the new burial-ground, I perceived a still denser
crowd. What could be the attraction ? At once it flashed
upon me that the attraction was the Dead-House,—the
living were come to visit the dead !
And such was the case. Large windows, or rather
doors, open out of the Dead-House into the cloisters.
Here people congregate and gaze in at the corpses. I
know not whether upon every day of the year the popu-
lace of the good city of Munich flocks to this awful spec-
tacle. At all events, to-day there was a great crowd ; and
I do not believe that any corpse of extraordinary interest
was exposed. I observed a considerable number of students
among the crowd: as I pushed my way beneath the
cloisters I found what had attracted them.
Jostled up against by men, women, and children, lay
two corpses in their open coffins supported upon biers.
I suppose they had been brought out for burial. How-
ever, there they were. One was the corpse of a student.
He lay in his coffin dressed in his best clothes; his black
dress-coat, black trowsers, patent-leather boots; a white
cravat tied round his throat, white kid gloves upon his
hands; he seemed dressed for a ball: but oh ! his face-
that statue-like expression upon the marble brow, the
sunken white cheeks, the heavy eyelids darkened by the
touch of death, the thick golden moustache curling over
the livid bps ! His- tricolour corps-band crossed his breast.
His hands were folded together, holding upon his heart a
large bouquet of fragrant flowers, together with a small
cross of black wood. Whilst I looked at him, a peasant-
woman dipped a brush into a vase of holy-water standing
near the coffin, and sprinkled the poor dead face with it.
The other corpse was of an old lady. No one seemed
to pay much attention to her. She had no flowers, not
169
When I neared the cloistered wall which separated the
old from the new burial-ground, I perceived a still denser
crowd. What could be the attraction ? At once it flashed
upon me that the attraction was the Dead-House,—the
living were come to visit the dead !
And such was the case. Large windows, or rather
doors, open out of the Dead-House into the cloisters.
Here people congregate and gaze in at the corpses. I
know not whether upon every day of the year the popu-
lace of the good city of Munich flocks to this awful spec-
tacle. At all events, to-day there was a great crowd ; and
I do not believe that any corpse of extraordinary interest
was exposed. I observed a considerable number of students
among the crowd: as I pushed my way beneath the
cloisters I found what had attracted them.
Jostled up against by men, women, and children, lay
two corpses in their open coffins supported upon biers.
I suppose they had been brought out for burial. How-
ever, there they were. One was the corpse of a student.
He lay in his coffin dressed in his best clothes; his black
dress-coat, black trowsers, patent-leather boots; a white
cravat tied round his throat, white kid gloves upon his
hands; he seemed dressed for a ball: but oh ! his face-
that statue-like expression upon the marble brow, the
sunken white cheeks, the heavy eyelids darkened by the
touch of death, the thick golden moustache curling over
the livid bps ! His- tricolour corps-band crossed his breast.
His hands were folded together, holding upon his heart a
large bouquet of fragrant flowers, together with a small
cross of black wood. Whilst I looked at him, a peasant-
woman dipped a brush into a vase of holy-water standing
near the coffin, and sprinkled the poor dead face with it.
The other corpse was of an old lady. No one seemed
to pay much attention to her. She had no flowers, not