In Greece, people aren't always buried. The bodies of the deceased are usually laid to rest inside marble tombs above ground with lids that can be easily lifted or slid aside. This tugged at my heart more than anything else - to see the faces of the people buried there as they were in life; their warm smiles and the kindness in their eyes. I spent a long time wandering around, kneeling in the grass next to the graves, talking to the people lying there and wondering how their lives had been.
When I walked to the rear edge of the cemetery, an unusual sight caught my eye - a tomb that was twice as large as any of the others. When I looked inside the cabinet, I found out why. There was a photograph of a young couple with their arms around each other, laughing. The date of their deaths, etched in the stone, were identical. Apparently, they were married and had died together in some kind of an accident. They had been laid in each other's arms inside the tomb. I can't relate all the feelings I had while looking at that picture of them together, bursting with youthful energy, their eager smiles full of excitement and anticipation of their lives together.
A line from a poem by Andrew Marvell crossed my mind -
"The grave is a fine and private place but none, I think, do there embrace."
I hoped it wasn't true.
在希臘,并不是所有死去的人都會被埋葬的。有時候放著尸體的石棺就放在地面上,人們可以很輕易的就把蓋子抬起來或者推到一邊去。以前還從沒有其他任何事情能讓我如此的震撼——看著這些去世的人的臉龐,還展現(xiàn)著熱情的笑容和慈祥的眼神,就和他們在生活中所表現(xiàn)出來的一樣。我徘徊了良久,在墳?zāi)古赃叺牟輩怖锕蛳聛?,與長埋地下的人們交談,想知道他們當(dāng)初的生活狀況。
我信步走到古墓的最后方,不尋常的一幕場景映入眼簾——有一座墳的大小是其它墳的兩倍那么大。我向放照片的相框里看去,知道了原因。那是一對年輕夫婦的照片,他們挎著胳膊開懷大笑。石碑上刻著他們?nèi)ナ赖臅r間,是相同的,顯然兩個人是在一次事故里雙雙去世的。此刻他們一定是互相依偎著躺在地下的,看著這張洋溢著年輕人青春活力的照片,我百感交集,他們熱情的笑容里面,充滿了幸福與對未來生活的展望。
安德魯.馬維爾的一句詩浮現(xiàn)在我的腦海里,
“墳?zāi)故莻€隱密的好地方,但沒人會在那里擁抱吧,我想。”
但愿這不是真的。