Page "belles_lettres" Paragraph 273

The first sentence, with its platitudinous irony, announces an emblematic intent: `` The way to the churchyard ran along beside the highroad, ran beside it all the way to the end ; ;

that is to say, to the churchyard ''.

And the action is consistently presented with regard for this distinction.

The highroad, one might say at first, belongs to life, while the way to the churchyard belongs to death.

But that is too simple, and won't hold up.

As the first sentence suggests, both roads belong to death in the end.

But the highroad, according to the description of its traffic, belongs to life as it is lived in unawareness of death, while the way to the churchyard belongs to some other sort of life: a suffering form, an existence wholly comprised in the awareness of death.

Thus, on the highroad, a troop of soldiers `` marched in their own dust and sang '', while on the footpath one man walks alone.