Part 49 (2/2)
Freyer tore off the envelope. ”Take the horse round to the stable, I will attend to everything.”
He entered and approached the door, through which the child had come to his mother's aid the last time she was there, to protect her from Josepha. The countess fancied that the little head must be again thrust in! But it was only Freyer with the despatch. The countess mechanically signed her name to the receipt as if she feared she could not do so after having read the message. Then, with a trembling hand, she opened the telegram, which contained only the words:
”Our angel has just died, with his mother's name on his lips. Please send directions for the funeral.
”Josepha.”
A cry rang through the room like the breaking of a chord--a death-like silence followed. The countess was on her knees, with her face bowed on the table, her hand clasping the telegram, crushed before the G.o.d whose might she felt for the first time in her life, whom only a few moments before she had blasphemed and defied. He had taken her at her word, and her words had condemned her. The child, the loyal child who had died with her name on his lips, she had wished but a few minutes before that G.o.d would take out of the world--she could betray him for the sake of an aristocratic legitimate brother, who never had existed. She could think of his death as something necessary, as her means of deliverance?
Now the child _had_ released her. Sensitive and modest, he had removed the burden of his poor little life, which was too much for her to bear and vanished from the earth where he found no place--but his last word was the name of all love, the name ”mother!” He had not asked ”have you fulfilled a mother's duties to me?--have you loved me?” He had loved his mother with that sweet child-love, which demands nothing--only gives.
And she, the avaricious mother, had been n.i.g.g.ardly with her love--till the child died of longing. She had let it die and did not bestow the last joy, press the last kiss upon the little mouth, permit the last look of the seeking eyes to rest upon the mother's face!
Outraged nature, so long denied, now shrieked aloud, like an animal for its dead young! But the brute has at least done its duty, suckled its offspring, warmed and protected it with its own body, as long as it could. But she, the more highly organized creature--for only human beings are capable of such unnatural conduct--had sacrificed her child to so-called higher interests, had neither heeded Josepha's warning, nor the voice of her own heart. Now came pity for the dead child, now she would fain have taken it in her arms, called it by every loving name, cradled the weary little head upon her breast. Too late! He had pa.s.sed away like a smiling good genius, whom she had repulsed--now she was alone and free, but free like the man who falls into a chasm because the rope which bound him to the guide broke. She had not known that she possessed a child, while he lived, now that he was dead she knew it. _Maternal joy_ could not teach her, for she had never experienced it--_maternal grief_ did--and she was forced to taste it to the dregs. Though she writhed in her torture, burying her nails in the carpet as if she would fain dig the child from the ground, she could find no consolation, and letting her head sink despairingly, she murmured: ”My child--you have gone and left me with a guilt that can never be atoned!”
”You can be my mother in Heaven,” he had once said. This, too, was forfeited; neither in Heaven nor on earth had she a mother's rights, for she had denied her child, not only before the world but, during this last hour, to herself also.
Freyer bore the dispensation differently. To him it was no punishment, but a trial, the inevitable consequence of unhappy, unnatural relations. He could not reproach himself and uttered no reproaches to others. He was no novice in suffering and had one powerful consolation, which she lacked: the perception of the divinity of grief--this made him strong and calm! Freyer leaned against the window and gazed upward to the stars, which were so peacefully pursuing their course. ”You were far away from me when you lived in a foreign land, my child--now you are near, my poor little boy! This cold earth had no home for you! But to your father you will still live, and your glorified spirit will brighten my path--the dark one I must still follow!” Tears flowed silently down his cheeks. No loud lamentations must profane his great, sacred anguish. With clasped hands he mutely battled it down and as of old on the cross his eyes appealed to those powers ever near the patient sufferer in the hour of conflict. However insignificant and inexperienced he might be in this world, he was proportionally lofty and superior in the knowledge of the things of another.
”Come, rise!” he said gently to the bewildered woman, bending to help her. She obeyed, but it was in the same way that two strangers, in a moment of common disaster, lend each other a.s.sistance. The tie had been severed that day, and the child's death placed a grave between them.
”I fear your sobbing will be heard downstairs. Will you not pray with me?” said Freyer. ”Do what we may, we are in G.o.d's hands and must accept what He sends! I wish that you could feel how the saints aid a soul which suffers in silence. Loud outcries and unbridled lamentations drive them away! G.o.d does not punish us to render us impatient, but patient.” He clasped his hands: ”Come, let us pray for our child!” He repeated in a low tone the usual, familiar prayers for the dying--we cannot always command words to express our feelings. An old formula often stands us in good stead, when the agitation of our souls will not suffer us to find language, and our thoughts, swept to and fro by the tempest of feeling, gladly cling to a familiar form to which they give new life.
The countess did not understand this. She was annoyed by the commonplace phraseology, which was not hallowed to her by custom and piety--she was contemptuous of a point of view which could find consolation for _such_ a grief by babbling ”trivialties.” Freyer ended his prayer, and remained a moment with his hands clasped on his breast.
Then he dipped his fingers in the holy water basin beside the place where the child's couch had formerly stood and made the sign of the cross over himself and the unresponsive woman. She submitted, but winced as if he had cut her face with a knife and destroyed its beauty.
It reminded her of the hour in Ammergau when he made the sign of the cross over her for the first time! Then she had felt enrolled by this symbol in a mysterious army of sufferers and there her misery began.
”We must now arrange where we will have the child buried,” said Freyer; ”I think we should bring him here, that we may still have our angel's grave!”
”As you choose!” she said in an exhausted tone, wiping away her tears.
”It will be best for you to go and attend to everything yourself. Then you can bring the--body!” The word again destroyed her composure. She saw the child in his coffin with Josepha, the faithful servant who had nursed him, beside it, and an unspeakable jealousy seized her concerning the woman to whom she had so indifferently resigned all her rights. The child, always so ready to lavish its love, was lying cold and rigid, and she would give her life if it could rise once more, throw its little arms around her neck, and say ”my dear mother.” ”Pearl of Heaven--I have cast you away for wretched tinsel and now, when the angels have taken you again, I recognize your value.” She tore the jewels from her breast. ”There, take these glittering stars of my frivolous life and put them in his coffin--I never want to see them again--let their rays be quenched in my child's grave.”
”The sacrifice comes too late!” said Freyer, pus.h.i.+ng the stones away.
He did not wish to be harsh, but he could not be untruthful. What was a handful of diamonds flung away in a moment of impulse to the Countess Wildenau? Did she seek to buy with them pardon for her guilt toward her dead child? The father's aching heart could not accept _that_ payment on account! Or was it meant for the symbol of a greater sacrifice--a sacrifice of her former life? Then it came too late, too late for the dead and for the living; it could not avail the former, and the latter no longer believed in it!
She had understood him and the terrible accusation which he unwittingly brought against her! Standing before him as if before a judge, she felt that G.o.d was with him at that moment--but she was deserted, her angel had left her, there was no pity for her in Heaven or on earth--save from one person! The thought illumined the darkness of her misery.
There was but one who would pour balm upon her wounds, one who had indulgence and love enough to raise the drooping head, pardon the criminal--her n.o.ble, generous-hearted friend, the Prince! She would fly to him, seek shelter from the gloomy spirit which had pursued her ever since she conjured up in Ammergau the cruel G.o.d who asked such impossible things and punished so terribly.
”Pray, order the carriage--I must leave here or I shall die.”
Freyer glanced at the clock. ”The half-hour Martin required is over, he will be here directly.”
”Is it only half an hour? Oh! G.o.d--is it possible--so much misery in half an hour! It seems an eternity since the news came!”
”We can feel more grief in one moment than pleasure in a thousand years!” answered Freyer. ”It is probably because a just Providence allots to each an equal measure of joy and pain--but the pain must be experienced in this brief existence, while we have an eternity for joy.
Woe betide him, who does the reverse--keeps the pain for eternity and squanders the joy in this world. He is like the foolish virgins who burned their oil before the coming of the 'bridegroom.'”
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