From dust they are made, and to dust they shall return

One of the most moving moments for me in the entire novel comes at the end, when Titu watches the funeral of the murdered peasants:

"Titu Herdelea was left with the priest, looking on silently while the lumps of sticky earth fell on the bodies which had been flung pell-mell into the pit, and now lay like a pile of rotten branches, and watching the dead gradually settle into their final resting place, mixing and mingling with the earth which hid them from all danger. 'How much they have suffered for the soil, and now the soil swallows them all!' murmered Titu Herdelea, his heart constricting" (369-370).

Forty-seven bodies, all buried in the land they fought to gain. This moment is reminiscent of the ending of Ion, when the protagonist is also buried after his life-long struggle to aquire a considerable amount of land. In this sense, one can see the connection between the novels, as they are both agrarian in theme. How utterly tragic the whole situation is! These people have worked to the bone they entire lives, trying to scrape together enough to keep their families from starving. And yet, in the end, they and their families die.