The Children of the World Part 40

At first Marquard would not listen to such a proposal, but Edwin was firm in his resolution, and they at last left him alone with the dead.

It was ten o'clock on a cold, dark winter's night; the wind drove snow flakes into the open windows, and ever and anon the candles flickered as if they would be extinguished. Edwin, wrapped in Balder's cloak, had thrown himself on his bed without undressing, and now lay listening to the wind, the spluttering of the candles, and the distant rolling of the carriages in the crowded city. No restful sleep visited his excited senses, only a hasty changeful dream, in which scenes from his earliest childhood pa.s.sed before his mind, and amid them Toinette seated in a light carriage beside a stranger, gazing coldly and sadly at him, followed by a vision of Leah's thoughtful face which appeared beside her mother's bust. When he opened his eyes to drive away these confused images, he looked straight into the round yellow eyes of the cat that would not leave the bier. This at last made him uncomfortable. He rose, took the animal in his arms and carried it to the door, to drive it down stairs. But when he turned the handle, he saw crouching on the threshold the figure of some one who seemed to have been peeping through the key hole.

"You here, Reginchen?" he exclaimed in astonishment.

The young girl had started up, and was standing before him trembling from head to foot like some detected criminal.

"Ah! Herr Doctor," she faltered at last, "don't be angry with me. I couldn't sleep, I tossed about continually, and let me close my eyes as resolutely as I would, I constantly saw him before me, and then--then something fairly drew me here--I thought when I'd once seen him I should feel better, that I could rest, and so I crept up stairs. I could, just see his face through the keyhole, but it wouldn't let me go away again. If you hadn't come, I believe I should have knelt here all night and been forced to look at him till I died."

"Won't you come in, child?" he said, taking her by the hand. "Don't be frightened. I'll cut off a lock of his hair for you. Do you want it?"

"No, no!" she exclaimed vehemently. "Not in there, not a step nearer!

I'm so afraid of him, I'm afraid he will open his eyes, and ask--oh!

Herr Edwin, you don't know--let me go--if I should touch a lock of his hair, I should never be able to leave his side again and I can't help being a poor stupid thing, who didn't understand him! Oh, G.o.d! my heart is breaking!"

Pa.s.sionate sobs checked her utterance. But when Edwin put his arm around her and kindly tried to soothe her, she broke from him and darted down the stairs like an arrow, while he stood a long time in the darkness, musing over this strange enigma, ere he again threw himself on his cold bed.

CHAPTER IV.

On the morning of the third day the funeral took place. Franzelius, who had undertaken to attend to all the sorrowful details, insisted that this last duty should be performed at six o'clock. "Perhaps then the preacher will oversleep himself," said he. Edwin had a.s.sented. The clergyman belonging to their ward, who as professor of theology had met Edwin at college, came the day after the event to condole with him and ask for some notes for the funeral address. "You would do me a favor,"

Edwin replied, "if you would merely say what is absolutely necessary, what your formula prescribes. Eulogies from a person who knew nothing of the dead, have always been repulsive to me; and besides, as my brother shared my opinions, many a word would be uttered over his open grave, against which he would protest if he could hear it." The clergyman probably thought that the softened soul of a mourner would be good soil in which to sow the seed of religion, but Edwin cut short all farther conversation, and his colleague, in by no means the best of humors, left him.

Franzelius had still another reason for choosing the dark morning hour.

A society of workmen, of which he was a member, wished to sing a hymn in the churchyard and could not a.s.semble later. But he did not tell his friend a word of this.

He had kept his promise, no stranger's hand had been allowed to touch the dead body. Even the most painful task, he performed himself, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g down with his own hands the coffin lid. Then, as the bearers wound slowly down the crooked stairs with their burden, he took Edwin's arm and supported him on the last sorrowful pilgrimage.

The street was only lighted by a faint reflection from the snow, and few persons were standing around the door. Edwin bowed sorrowfully to his acquaintances and then entered the first of the four mourning coaches, which instantly moved forward. He was accompanied by Mohr, Marquard, and Franzelius. The second carriage was occupied by Herr Feyertag and the old gentleman on the second floor, who despite the wintry cold, would not be dissuaded from showing his fellow-lodger this token of sympathy. The third carriage belonged to the little artist. He had come by himself and intended to follow the coffin alone, when he perceived the head journeyman, who with a large weed on his hat and a band of c.r.a.pe on his left arm, was preparing to accompany the procession on foot. Herr Konig instantly ordered his driver to stop, opened the door, and compelled the worthy man to take the seat beside him, which the modest fellow after long hesitation, at last consented to do.

The fourth and last carriage contained a young Pole and the president of a society, which numbered among its members many foreigners and formed the largest portion of the audience to Edwin's lectures. They followed the body solely from regard for their teacher, as they had never known Balder, and instantly drew down the curtains in order to beguile the long ride by discussing theatrical matters, the latest news, and smoking paper cigarettes.

From an upper window, a weeping girl wrapped in a thick shawl, gazed after the slowly moving carriages. It was Reginchen, who for two days had not made her appearance and steadily refused even to see her lover.

The procession moved through the Oranienburg Gate and traversed the suburbs for some distance, ere it reached the cemetery. The air was mild, as if a thaw were about to set in, and the snow over which they walked to the grave, yielded noiselessly under their feet. Beside the fresh mound of earth stood the clergyman, and behind him a throng of dark figures, the workmen to whom the printer had said that he had lost his dearest friend. The clergyman, whom Edwin only greeted with a formal wave of the hand, now read aloud the prayer for the burial of the dead and then approached the edge of the grave, into which the coffin was already lowered.

He began: "'In the midst of life we are in death.' But they who turn from the light of eternal truth, bear the gloom of death within their souls. They live as if they thought never to die, and die as though they were never to live again. What grief and terror will overwhelm them on the day when the graves open and the dead come forth to receive the crown of glory or the sentence of eternal condemnation. How the words of the Judge will thunder in their ears: 'I offered you salvation and ye rejected it with scorn and turned a deaf ear unto my message.'

In your vain self-righteousness you chose to be your own deliverers, and have p.r.o.nounced your own doom. Then will your pride bow before the throne of the Highest, and defiance be crushed before the majesty of the Son of Man. Then lips will sue for mercy, which on earth overflowed with blasphemy, denying with Peter and saying: 'I know not this man.'

But we, who stand around this sad grave, will unite in silent prayer to G.o.d, and implore him not to enter into judgment with this our brother, to suffer a ray of his eternal mercy to transfigure and cleanse from sin the frail erring life, which too early reached its end!"

An unbroken silence followed these words. The clergyman had folded his hands over his book and closed his eyes in prayer. Suddenly Franzelius'

suppressed voice was heard amid the group of friends who were standing at the foot of the grave:

"Let me speak, for I cannot be silent, I should despise myself, I should be a miserable coward, if I could hear such words spoken over his grave, without uttering a protest in the name of those who have known and loved him. What is that I hear? 'let there be no scandal?'

Say that to those, who have not hesitated to carry the strife of opinions into the stillness of the churchyard, where even the bitterest enemies lie in death quietly side by side. No, my friends," he continued in a loud voice, springing upon one of the snow covered mounds, "we at least have not a.s.sembled around this grave, to stammer an abject pet.i.tion for a poor sinner who, unless justice be tempered by mercy, is forever lost. This dead man will never be lost to us, and as by the might of his love and intellect, he has indeed redeemed himself from the curse of frail mortality, the terrors of blind delusion and the bonds of selfishness, his memory will help us to free ourselves also and to become more worthy of the joy of having been loved by him.

For yes, he has loved you too, my friends who never saw his face or heard his voice. His great heart beat for all his brothers, for all who were poor and miserable, for all the children of this world, who come they know not whence and go they know not whither, and yet are too honest to console themselves with fantastic tales and be lulled to rest by idle dreams. What can be called sacred, if his grave is not? For do you know _whom_ we are burying here? A laborer, my friends, who was ever sharing his last s.h.i.+lling with some poor man; a poet who never desecrated his genius for fame or gold; a hero, whose last act was a deed of sacrifice for those he loved. And is this life to be swallowed up in gloom? Should this grave be called a 'sad' one over which penitent sighs and pharasaical pet.i.tions for mercy must resound? Oh! my Balder, I know you would submit to even this error of a gloomy, intolerant formalist, with the quiet smile which was your only weapon against all a.s.saults. But we, your friends, are not yet at peace, but in the midst of warfare. We must struggle for the weak who allow themselves to be intimidated by formulas preferring to leave their free souls in imprisonment than to shake themselves free from the hands of their tyrants, to learn to know and love this earth instead of despising its beauty in view of an imaginary world to come. Despise an earth, which has contained you, my Balder, a sky to which your n.o.ble eyes have been raised? no, a thousand times no! such a world is no vale of tears, and even in the bitterest woe beside your grave, we still have a feeling of triumph--we have possessed you, and all the calamities of life are richly compensated for, by the certainty that your great heart lives on in ours--Balder--my friend--my brother--"

His voice suddenly failed, he pressed his clenched hand to his eyes and turned away, but the next instant regained his composure and motioned to the singers, who stood in a dense ma.s.s behind him. Instantly a quartette choir, whose voices at first low and unsteady from agitation, became gradually clearer and more powerful, began a song, which Mohr had composed to the air of _Integer vitae_:

Brother, ere in the dust thy form we lay, We'll to thy worth a loving tribute pay; Thy virtues rare, and kindly heart, which were A comfort on life's way.

Fearless thy earnest, n.o.ble soul did stand, Not mid the lofty masters of the land, But with thy brothers, 'mong their lowly huts, A member of their band.

O! chosen one, for whom we proudly weep.

Of whom thy friends a loved remembrance keep, How patiently thy weary lot was borne Till peaceful thou did'st sleep!

Rejoice we at thy absence; gone before Thy pleasures and thy pains on earth are o'er; Rest thou, while on through strife and woe We heavenward soar.

The last solemn notes died away, but there was still no movement among the group who stood with bowed heads beside the open grave. When after a pause they raised their eyes they perceived that the clergyman had disappeared. The old s.e.xton, unable to understand the strange scene, had also retired leaving his spade behind him. While Edwin, standing between Mohr and Marquard, gazed into the grave as tearlessly as a departed spirit, it was rapidly filled, each person stepping forward in turn to cast in a spadeful of earth.

Franzelius approached Edwin, and they clasped each other's hands in silence. The mourner's soul was still benumbed with grief, and the same dull stupor rested upon him as the party returned home. He took leave of his friends at the door of the house and went up to his desolate cell alone.

He found everything in the neatest order, nothing was left to recall the sorrowful events which, during the last few days, had occurred in the quiet room. A bright fire was burning in the stove, the breakfast stood on the table as usual, and the turning lathe was once more in its place beside the window, with the tools arranged upon it as before.

But on Balder's chair lay the little chisel with which Franzelius had screwed down the coffin lid. At this sight, the spell which had bound Edwin was suddenly broken; he threw himself into the chair and gave free course to the bitterest tears.

CHAPTER V.

When Marquard visited Edwin the following morning, he found him at his desk, holding his pen in his right hand and resting his head on the left. A sheet of paper lay before him.

"Good morning, Fritz," said he. "You've come just at the right time. I must make a decision, and everything within me seems walled up. I need some one to unlock me. Perhaps you have the key." He looked at him with a weary, restless glance, and tried to smile. It was pitiful to see the effort he made to adopt a careless tone. His friend shook his head, "A decision?" he asked.

"Yes, indeed, and no less important one than to dip this pen into yonder inkstand and write: 'Honored Sir!' Will you believe that I've been working at this herculean task for two hours and have not yet stirred a finger?"

"You can do something more sensible."

"Gladly. If it doesn't require too much intelligence."

"Only as much as is needed to pack a trunk and go with it to the railway station. My fur boots are at your service, and also money to pay the traveling expenses. If you will only for once take the medicine, without reflecting upon the prescription, and pack up this very day."

"This very day?"

"What's the use of writing that you will come? You're going, and that's enough. I know all you want to say: that you don't feel like it, that you fear you'll not make a favorable impression just now. That's all nonsense. If you don't make haste at once, it's very doubtful whether you can ever present yourself in any place; you're far more likely to absent yourself--retire where we yesterday accompanied our own Balder.

You've been moping about here for months. It's a bit too much, quite enough to break down a stronger man. Come now, make a dash, put on your dress-coat, visit your superiors and colleagues, set the cog-wheel of your career in motion, and let the grey substance in your brain rest, that it may make good its deficiencies. If this prescription is not carefully followed, I'll answer for nothing, or rather I will answer for the nothing into which your insignificant self will soon be resolved. Have you had any sleep?"

"I believe so," replied Edwin, with an absent nod. "I slept night before last from two to three."

"I thought so!" exclaimed his friend, das.h.i.+ng his hat violently upon the table. "And no one made his appearance yesterday, to perform a work of charity and bore you till you fell asleep. What's the use of friends who are poets in private and lecturers in public? Where was Mohr, with his famous comedy? And our dear Franzel? Holy--"

"Philosophy showed poetry the door in the afternoon," said Mohr, who had just entered and overheard Marquard's words, "but don't be disturbed. Doctor, I'm not at all offended. It's long been known that you materialists have not cla.s.sical culture enough to distinguish between Orpheus and Morpheus. Good morning, Edwin. I'm only here to tell you that I'm not yet fit for anything. The salt in my nature has lost its savor, or else grown bitter. As Bitter-salt[6] it may perhaps be of some a.s.sistance as a purgative; (pardon the wretched pun, the times are too hard for good ones.) And then I wanted to tell you why the tribune of the people cannot appear to-day any more than yesterday.

He's been imprisoned."

"Franzel?"