Waldfried Part 32

It was just striking the hour of noon, when she breathed her last.

I tottered to her room at last; it seemed to me as if I must still find her alive; and when I was in her chair, I could not realize that I was seated there, and that she lay so near me, while I could do nothing for her.

I do not know how it was, but I felt awed by the very silence of the place.

Martella said, "I have stopped the clock; it, too, shall stand still."

They had withdrawn the letter from her convulsively closed hand, and I read it. It has since disappeared--whither, I know not. I remember only this--that it contained news from Algiers, and that Ernst said in it that if Martella and Richard were fond of one another, he was quite ready to release her from any promise to him.

With the exception of Ernst and Ludwig, all of my children were present. Many friends, too, were there. I recollect that I grasped the hands of many of them; but what avails that? They all have their own life left them--I have none.

All arose to attend to the funeral. They set down the coffin in front of the house, and not far from the spring. They told me that my grandson, the vicar, delivered an impressive address in the name of the family. I heard nothing but the rushing of the water.

How I reached her grave, or who led me, I know not.

This alone do I know. I saw how Martella kissed the handful of earth that she threw into the empty grave, and when I returned homeward, the waters were still roaring in our fountain. It roars and roars.

I felt borne down as if by a load of lead. Tears were not vouchsafed me. I could not realize that my hands could move, my eyes see--in fact that I was still alive.

When I looked out again over the valley and towards the hills, it suddenly seemed as if my eyes had become covered with a film, and then all--the forest, the meadows, and the houses seemed of a blood-red color, as if steeped in the dark glow of evening.

I closed my eyes for a long while, and when I opened them again, I saw that the meadows and the woods were green, and everything had its natural color.

The water flows over the weir and bubbles and rushes and sparkles to-day, just as it did yesterday, and as it will tomorrow. How can it be possible that all continues to live on, and she not here. Do not tell me that nature can comfort us against real grief. Against a loss for aye she availeth nothing.

If, in your closet, you have grieved because of insult and falsehood and meanness, do but go out into the fields or woods. While gazing upon the bright and kindly face of nature, or inhaling the sweet perfume of the trees and flowers, you will soon learn to forget such troubles. How weak is all the world's wickedness, when compared with such undying grandeur? That which is best on earth is still yours, if these things but preserve their sway over you. But, if your wife has been torn away from you, neither tree, nor stream, nor the blue heavens, nor the flowers, nor the singing birds will help you. All nature lives a life of its own, and unto itself, and of what avail is it all, when she no longer shares it with me?

The first thing that recalled me to myself, was hearing the old spinner say to Carl, "Why am I yet here? She was so good and so useful, and I am nothing but a burden to you and to the world. Why must I stay behind? I would so gladly have gone in her stead."

The poor people were gathered all about the house, and one old woman cried out, through her tears, "The bread she gave us was doubly welcome, for it was given cheerfully."

I felt that my energies would never again arouse themselves. I cannot say that the thought alarmed me; I merely felt conscious that my mental powers were either failing or torpid. For days I could not collect my thoughts, and led a dull, listless, inanimate life. My children were about me, but their sympathy did not help me. Ernst's evil letter was the only thing that had any effect on me.

I could not realize that what had once been life, was now nothing more than a thought, a memory.

When I heard some one coming up the steps, I always thought it must be she returning and saying, "I could not stay away; I must return to you, you are so lonely. The children are good and kind, but we two cannot remain apart." And then I would start with affright, when I noticed how my thoughts had been wandering.

When I walked in the street, I felt as if I were but half of myself. As long as she was with me I had always felt myself rich, for my home contained her who was best of all.

No one can know what a wealth of soul had been mine; through her, and with her, I had felt myself moving in a higher spiritual sphere. But now I felt so broken, so bereft, as if my entire intellectual possessions had gone to naught. The children are yet here; but they are for themselves. My wife alone was here for me--was indeed my other self.

Before that, when I awakened of a morning it was always a pleasure to feel conscious of life itself; but now with every morrow I had to begin anew and try to learn how to reconcile myself to my loss. But that is a lesson I shall never learn. My sun had gone down; I did not care to live any longer, because all that I experienced seemed to come in between her and me, and I did not wish to live but in thoughts of her.

I looked at her lamp, her table, her work-basket--all these had survived her, are still here, and will remain. The one clock was never wound up afterward. From that day, there was but one clock heard in our room.

I can now understand why the ancients buried the working implements with their dead.

I looked out of the window. The neighbors' children were in the street; their noise grated on my ears. I could not but think how she once said to me, "Why should it annoy us? Is it anything more than the singing of the birds? The children are like so many innocent birds."

All things remind me of her. I could sit by the window for hours and look at the chickens running back and forth, picking up crumbs, and watching the strutting c.o.c.k.

I must have been like a little child that, for the first time, begins to take notice of the objects that surround it.

I seemed as if awaking from darkness, as if dreaming with my eyes open. Everything seemed new and strangely mysterious to me, although I had nearly attained my seventieth year.

When, after many weeks, I again saw my face in the mirror, I was surprised at the saddened, sunken features of the old man. Could that be I!

I had gone to the neighboring village to order a gravestone. On my way home, night overtook me. Suddenly a storm burst upon the valley. Like a child, I counted the interval between the lightning and the thunder. At first I could count up to thirty-two, afterwards only to seven; and then I stopped counting. I saw the houses by the roadside, and knew who lived in them here and there, I might have found shelter, but what should I do in a strange house, wet to the skin as I was? I kept in the middle of the road, on the broken stone. When I came to where the little bridge was, I had to wade through the water.

I noticed that I was in the midst of the storm-cloud. How glorious it would have been to die at that moment--to be struck dead by lightning!

"But my children, my children!" I uttered the words in a loud voice, but the thunder drowned my cries.

The flashes of lightning succeeded each other so rapidly that they blinded me; I could see nothing more. I closed my eyes and held fast to a rock by the wayside. I had never heard such fearful roaring of the thunder, or seen such uninterrupted flashes of lightning. I stood still and concluded to wait there, while I thought of the many other beings who were also exposed to this storm; and at last, I could weep. I had not wept since her death, and now it did me good. The hail beat into my face, already wet with tears.

Suddenly Rothfuss appears and exclaims: "Martella sends me. Oh, G.o.d be praised! there is a good bed waiting for you at home."

Guided by Rothfuss, I reached the house. Although my family were greatly concerned as to the effect it might have, the shock that I had undergone had really benefited me. I slept until noon, and when I arose I felt as if breathing a new life.

I must stop here. I cannot go on. I was obliged to learn how to begin life anew. When one has buried his dearest love in the earth, the earth itself becomes a changed world, and one's step upon it a different one.

I trust that I shall not be obliged hereafter to repeat my lamentations for my own life. The first tranquillizing influence I found was in the statue gallery, with its figures from another world, so silent, so unchanging. We can offer them nothing, and yet they give us so much: they are without life or color, but they represent life in its imperishable beauty.

Rothfuss offered me a strange solace. He said, "Master, there must be another woman somewhere in this world just as she was."

"Why?"

"I always thought that G.o.d only suffered the sun to shine because she was here, but I see that the sun still shines, and so there must be others like her."

Martella, however, could not realize that she was dead.

"It cannot be: it is not true: she is not dead. She is surely coming up the steps now. How is it possible that a being can remain away from those who love her so? I have one request to make. I wish you would give the pretty dresses to Madame Johanna and Fraulein Christiane; a few of the work-day clothes you can give to me, and the good woollen dress you can give to Carl's mother. Let no one else have any of her clothes. It would grieve me to the heart to know that a strange person was wearing anything that she had worn. Whoever wears a dress of hers can neither think an evil thought nor do an evil deed."

My son Ludwig wrote a letter, in which he lamented my wife's death with all the feeling of which a son is capable, and yet spoke of death as a wise man should. My daughter Johanna lost the letter. I think she must have destroyed it on account of the heresies it contained.

My consolation is that I have been found worthy of the perfect love of so pure a being; that, of itself, is worth all the troubles of life.

Let what may come hereafter, what I have experienced cannot be taken from me.

I have had a tomb-stone placed at her grave. It has two tablets on one are the words:

"HERE LIES IPHIGENIA GUSTAVA WALDFRIED, _Born December 15th, 1807_, _Died July 23d, 1867_."

On the other, my name shall one day be placed.

BOOK THIRD.