persuade me to go back to town life again!

In the evenings I wandered about the woods, or in the churchyard reading
the inscriptions on the tombstones, and thinking of this and that. Also, I
was looking about for a nail from some corpse. I wanted a nail; it was a
fancy of mine, a little whim. I had found a nice piece of birch-root that
I wanted to carve to a pipe-bowl in the shape of a clenched fist; the
thumb was to act as a lid, and I wanted a nail to set in, to make it
specially lifelike. The ring finger was to have a little gold ring bent
round.

Thinking of such trifles kept my mind calm and at ease. There was no hurry
now for me about anything in life. I could dream as I pleased, having
nothing else to do; the evenings were my own. If possible, too, I would
see and arrive at some feeling of respect for the sacredness of the church
and terror of the dead; I had still a memory of that rich mysticism from
days now far, far behind, and wished I could have some share in it again.
Now, perhaps, when I found that nail, there would come a voice from the
tombs: "That is mine!" and I would drop the thing in horror, and take to
my heels and run.

"I wish that vane up there wouldn't creak so," Grindhusen would say at
times.

"Are you afraid?"

"Well, not properly afraid; no. But it gives you a creeping feeling now
and then to think of all the corpses lying there so near."

Happy man!