ABSTRACT
I tell you all houses are holes in an arse of stone we eat off coffin lids between evening star and milk in a bucket is nothing the churn is emptied twice a day cast us steaming on the fields (John Berger, Toem of Emigration: Village’, 1984, p.57)
‘I’ll tell you what I did yesterday! I got the sexton, who was digging Linton’s grave, to remove the earth off her coffin lid, and I opened it. I thought, once, I would have stayed there, when I saw her face again – it is hers yet – he had hard work to stir me; but he said it would change, if the air blew on it, and so I struck one side of the coffin loose – and covered it up – not Linton’s side, damn him! I wish he’d been soldered in lead – and I bribed the sexton to pull it away, when I’m laid there, and slide mine out too. I’ll have it made so, and then, by the time Linton gets to us, he’ll not know which is which!’
‘You were very wicked, Mr Heathcliff!’ I exclaimed; ‘were you not ashamed to disturb the dead?’
‘I disturbed nobody, Nelly,’ he replied; ‘and I gave some ease to myself. I shall be a great deal more comfortable now; and you’ll have a better chance of keeping me underground, when I get there.…
‘And if she had been dissolved into earth, or worse, what would you have dreamt of then?’ I said.
‘Of dissolving with her, and being more happy still!’ he answered. ‘Do you suppose that I dread any change of that sort?’
(Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, 1847, ch. 29) Tinkinswood, Glamorgan https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203973639/26822086-70f2-48f7-b2bd-8bd4e839410e/content/u_fig196_C.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>