Part 88 (2/2)

Palm laid his pen aside and rose.

The door opened--Anna entered. She glided toward him with a heavenly smile; he clasped her in his arms, and, kissing her head which she had laid on his breast, whispered: ”G.o.d bless you for having come to me! I knew that I should not look for you in vain!”

The jailer stood at the open door and wept. His sobs reminded Palm of his presence.

”Balthasar,” he said, imploringly, and pointing his hand at Anna who was still reposing on his breast, ”Balthasar, I am sure you will leave me alone with her, my friend?”

”I have received stringent orders never to leave prisoners under sentence of death alone with others,” murmured Balthasar. ”They might easily furnish arms or poison to them; that is what my superiors told me.”

Palm placed his hand on his wife's head as if going to take a solemn oath. ”Balthasar,” he said, ”by this sacred and beloved head I swear to you that I shall not commit suicide. Let my murderers take my life. Will you now leave me alone with her?”

”I will, for it would be cruel not to do so,” said Balthasar. ”G.o.d alone ought to hear what you have to say to each other! I give you half an hour; then the officers and the priest will come, and it will no longer be in my power to keep this door locked. But until then n.o.body shall disturb you.”

He left the cell and locked the door.

Man and wife were alone now; they had half an hour for their last interview, their last farewell.

There are sacred moments which, like the wings of the b.u.t.terfly, are injured by the slightest touch of the human hand, and which, therefore, must not be approached; there are words which no human ear ought to listen to, and tears which G.o.d alone ought to count.

Half an hour later the jailer opened the door and reentered. Palm and his wife stood in the middle of the cell, and, encircling each other with one arm, looked calmly, serenely, and smilingly at each other like two spirits removed from earth.

The paper on which Palm had written was no longer on the table; it reposed now on Anna's heart; the golden wedding-ring which Palm had worn on his finger had disappeared, and glittered now on Anna's hand near her own wedding-ring.

”The priest is there,” said the jailer, ”and the soldiers, too, are already in the corridor. It is high time.”

”Go, then, Anna,” said Palm, withdrawing his arm from her neck.

But she clung with a long scream of despair to his breast. ”You want me to live, then?” she exclaimed, reproachfully. ”You want to sever our paths? Oh, be merciful, my beloved; remember that we have sworn at the altar to share life and death with each other! Let me die with you, therefore!”

”No,” he said, tenderly and firmly. ”No, Anna, you shall live with me!

My children are my life and my heart; they will live with you. Every morning I shall greet you from the eyes of our children, and when they embrace you, think it were my arms encircling you. Live for our children, Anna; teach them to love their father who, it is true, will be no longer with them, but whose soul will ever surround you and them! Swear to me that you will live and bear your fate firmly and courageously!”

”I swear it,” she said in a low voice.

”And now, beloved Anna, leave me! My last moments belong to G.o.d!”

He kissed her lips, which were as cold as marble, and led her gently to the door.

Anna now raised her head in order to fix a long, last look on him.

”You want me to live,” she said; ”I shall do so long as it pleases G.o.d.

I bid you, therefore, farewell, but not forever, nor even for a very long while. All of us are nothing but poor wanderers whom G.o.d has sent on earth to perform their pilgrimage. But at length He opens to us again the doors of our paternal house and calls us home! I long for my return home, my beloved! Farewell, then, until we meet again!”

”Farewell until we meet again!”

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