On the Heights Part 123

I once knew a man who had already been kneeling on the sand-heap, the muskets aimed at him, and--he was pardoned. I have often seen him. Oh that I had asked him how he lived on!

There is no mirror in my room. I have determined never to see myself again.

And since I neither have, nor desire a mirror, let these pages be the mirror of my soul.

Oh this repose! this solitude! It is like rising from the lake, like life regained. And yet how calm, how restful!

Up here, and in thousands of other places on this earth, 'twas ever thus, while, down below, I was about to commit a fearful sin!

I have just returned from the workshop. Formerly, when making excursions from the summer palace into the surrounding country, we would stop at the industrial villages and visit the large workshops, where everything was shown us. I used to feel a sense of shame--ah!

that was long ago--at the thought of our merely looking on for a moment, while others were working. And when we returned to our carriages and drove off, leaving the men still at their work, what must they have thought of us?

I am now at the workbench myself.

Why does no religion place the command: "Thou shalt work" above all others?

They say that the wound sucked by living lips heals quickly. O thou who art called queen! I would like to suck up the blood that trickles from thy heart!

Did I destroy the letter to the queen, or did it reach her?

I started with fright, when the grandmother asked me why I had pained the queen by informing her that I meant to take my life.

Why? I know not why. All I know is that I could not help it; it was the last, the unavoidable tribute I owed to truthfulness.

Why is it that we only concern ourselves about what others may think of us after death when life has become but an empty sound?

Sad and painful days.

I regarded it as my duty to write to the queen from my place of concealment. Uncle Peter, a true-hearted and obliging little man, who is always at my service and would like to show me a kindness every moment, offered to carry a letter for me to a distant town. The queen shall not grieve on my account--not for my death, at all events. I will let her know that I am yet alive, but that my life is one of expiation.

If I only felt sure that I had really burnt the letters, or that they reached him and her. Him I need tell no more. The good mother noticed that something was troubling me--something that I had kept from her.

She often came to me, but asked no questions. At last I could bear it no longer, and told her what I had determined on. She took me by the hand--whenever she means to make her words additionally impressive, she does this, as if she felt that she must hold fast to me physically--and said: "Child, you've only to make up your mind clearly as to what you mean to do. Ask your own heart whether you wouldn't rather be discovered. Ask your conscience."

I started. It is true, I should not care to do anything, but if it were to happen--

"Don't give me your answer," continued the mother; "answer yourself, and then ask yourself whether, if you returned to where you once were, you wouldn't, on the morrow or the day after, wish to be away again. But let me tell you one thing: whatever you determine on, do it thoroughly.

Don't write at all, and let the queen mourn you; for it's much easier to grieve for the dead than for one who, though living, is lost; or else, write to her honestly and frankly: 'Here I am.' As I said before, whatever you do, let it be done thoroughly. O my child!" she added, "I fear it will be with you as it was with the poor soul. Do you know the story of the poor soul?"

"No."

"Then I'll tell it to you. There was once a young girl who, having gone astray and died an early death, descended into h.e.l.l; and there Saint Peter could always hear her crying, from amidst the flames, 'Paul!

Paul!' in tones that were so heartrending that even the most wicked demons couldn't find it in their hearts to mock at her. So one day Saint Peter went up to the gates of h.e.l.l and inquired: 'My dear child, why are you always crying "Paul! Paul!" in such a pitiful voice?' and the girl replied: 'Ah, dear Saint Peter, what are all of h.e.l.l's torments? To me, they're nothing. Paul is worse off than I am. How will he endure life without me? I only ask for one thing; let me return to the earth once more; only for a moment, so that I may see how he's getting on, and I'll be willing to remain in h.e.l.l a hundred years longer."

"'A hundred years!' said St. Peter. 'Consider, my child; a hundred years is a long time.'

"'Not to me. Oh, I implore you to let me see my Paul once more! After that, I'll certainly be quiet and submit patiently to everything.'

"Saint Peter resisted for a long while, but the poor soul gave him no peace, and at last he said: 'Well, you may go, for all I care; but you'll be sorry for it.'

"And so the poor soul returned to the earth, in order to see her beloved Paul. And when she got there, and saw him feasting and enjoying himself with others, she quietly went back to eternity and, shaking her head sadly, said: 'Now I'll return to h.e.l.l and repent.' And then Saint Peter said to her: 'The hundred years you promised are forgiven you.

During the one minute you pa.s.sed on earth, you suffered more than you would have done in a hundred years of h.e.l.l.'

"And that's the story of the poor soul."

I thirst for some spring outside of me, which would refresh and redeem me. I long for music, for faith, for some soul-liberating dedication of myself! I find it not. I must seek the spring within myself.

In deepest grief it often seems to me as if it were not I who have suffered thus. I go my way, and it seems as if some one were telling me the story of what had happened to another.

For the first time in my life, I know what it is to feel that I am being borne with and favored. I really ought not to be here. I am eating the bread of charity. Now I know how the poor homeless ones must feel. If Hansei cared to do so, he could send me out of his house this very day, and what would become of me then?

I am obliged to eat in the company of my hospitable friends, and I find it no easy matter to do so. I pity Hansei, most of all. To him, it must seem as if a strange apparition--the phantom of one whom he knows not, was seated at his table. I destroy his happiness.

I have punctured my hand with the gimlet, just because, while at work, I am busy thinking of other things. My little pitchman has brought me a healing salve.

Antique forms of beauty cannot be worked in wood. It is inflexible, stubborn stuff, and can, with difficulty, be made to yield to the designs of art. It is naught but a makes.h.i.+ft material.

"Oh, how glorious it must be to live up here!" How often is this expression heard during country excursions! But we forget that the atmosphere of country parties and that of home are two very different things. How different when the wind whistles over the stubble fields and rages among the leafless forest trees; when dull and heavy mists creep over the mountains; when, for days and days, the clouds hang upon the heights, and, now and then, suffer a summit to appear in phantom-like outline, only to hide it again; when, at night, the storms disturb your sleep, and it seems as if day would never come. Yes, ye picnic spirits, with garlands of fresh leaves on your hats! spend weeks up here without a sofa, without fresh bread; only think of it--without a sofa!