...of the Garden of God

Padre Jose went in, under the big classical gateway marked in black letters 'Silencio' to what people used to call the Garden of God. It was like a building estate where nobody had paid attention to the architecture of the next house. The big stone tombs of above-ground burial were any height and any shape; sometimes an angel stood on the roof with lichenous wings: sometimes through a glass window you could see some rusting metal flowers upon a shelf - it was like looking into the kitchen of a house whose owners have moved on, forgetting to clean the vases out. There was a sense of intimacy - you could go anywhere and see anything. Life here had withdrawn altogether.
He walked very slowly because of his bulk among the tombs; he could be alone here, there were no children about, and he could waken a faint sense of homesickness which was better than no feeling at all. He had buried some of these people. His small inflamed eyes turned here and there. Coming round the huge grey bulk of the Lopez tomb - a merchant family which fifty years ago had owned the only hotel in the capital - he found he was not alone. A grave was being dug at the edge of the cemetery next to the wall: two men were rapidly at work: a woman stood by and an old man. A child's coffin lay at their feet - it took no time at all in the spongy soil to get down far enough. A little water collected. That was why those who could afford it lay above ground.

[The Power and the Glory, Greene, G.]