The authoress is young—very young;—but we give her story Here in its entirety.
PITY ME!
By Bertha Russell (age 15)
How I loved to handle corpses, cold, stiff, bodies! That was why I had been an undertaker. Came the day though that resulted in my loathing and hating them. The reason for this, let me, a wretched, broken-down, white-haired old man explain to you, reader.
It was a cold, wet, dripping, clouded day when the body which was to make me what I am today arrived to be embalmed. The body was of a dark, beautiful, Spanish woman of wealthy people. I learned that she had died but three hours ago from some ailment or other. The boss, who was the head undertaker of the place, ordered me to embalm the body and to be ready inside of an hour. I nodded my head happily, for was I not going to handle a cold corpse?
Having secured the necessary tools and articles, I entered the gray, musty, tomblike, embalming room. It was a narrow room with large man-size shelves running on each side. At the end was a slight enlargement of space which made accommodating room for a long, narrow, black table. This section was lit more brighter. On the table a body covered entirely by a sheet was lying as stiff as a stick. I knew this to be my corpse.
With one sweep of my hand I snatched the sheet off with delightful eagerness. A sort of dismayed sound escaped my lips as I viewed the body of the woman. Ah, she was too lovely, too divine-looking for me to caress and pet. No, no, I would not let my passion work on her, no.
So, having prepared my thin, silver knife, I began to cut the artery that was customary to being severed in embalming. I know that I hadn't reached the artery as yet, (I don't know why for it was usually done in one minute) when my eyes were strangely attracted to the lips. Surely my eyes must be deceiving me, for did they not begin to twitch from one side to the other as if they had tasted bitter salt? The eyelids began to flicker; then the hands began stiffly to open and shut, open and shut. My knife clattered to the floor; still I stood there, powerless to run. The features began to twitch also, as if in some agonizing pain. To my horrified eyes, the eyelids flickered once more and then opened as quick as a bolt of lightning. Those haunting dark brown eyes just stared at me with a look that I don't want never, never, to see. "You—what—have—you—done!" the tortured living thing shrieked in a high pitch tone of voice between gasps while rising, with still those glassy eyes fixed on me.
I know I screamed, I know I yelled, I know that I fell with something fleshy hurling itself upon me. I knew no more.
The boss privately afterward told me while convalescening from a nervous break-down, six months afterwards to be exact, that when they heard my terrific fear-laden screams they had rushed in to find me on the damp floor with the dead body of the Spanish woman lying across me. Awful—awful!
He good-naturedly refused to believe me when I told him the entire frightful story, saying it was my nerves & strenuous work and to please forget it. But how can I forget it when he himself remarked that he finished cutting the artery?
Pity me, reader, pity me!
