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Tobe let the first of the town’s women into Emily’s home, then departed out the back door and was never seen again. Emily’s two female cousins had arrived to oversee the funeral, which took place the second day after she died. Her body was laid out in the parlor, while the crayon drawing of her father looked on. Among the funeral attendants were a group of elderly men, some in their old Confederate uniforms, who stood around outside reminiscing about, and misremembering, Emily.
After some time had passed, and Emily had been buried, the door to the sealed upstairs room—the one that had not been opened in forty years—was broken down by the townspeople. Forcing their way into the room, they saw there was dust everywhere. The room was frozen in time, and is compared by the narrator to a tomb. It was decorated “as for a bridal,” with the items for an upcoming wedding and a man’s suit laid out. The monogrammed toilet was discovered there, the silver tarnished. Horrifyingly, Homer Barron’s body was stretched on the bed, in an advanced state of decay, to the point that the rotted corpse had become merged with the bed itself. He was wearing his nightshirt, the one Emily had purchased for him. The onlookers then noticed the indentation of a head in the pillow beside Homer’s body and a long strand of Emily’s gray hair on the pillow, suggesting she had been sleeping next to him all this time.
