On the Heights Part 139

The carnival is a great festival--the very realization of jollity.

Peasants from the village come to visit us. They often come on Sundays, but I never heard them speak of anything but cattle, the crops, or the price of grain. I sometimes remain in the room to listen to them, for I love to hear the sound of human voices.

The stories they tell each other seem simple, but, after all, none better are told in the _salon_.

Why did I not live out my life in purity? I was intended for a n.o.ble and beautiful existence.

My white foal is running about, while I sit here modeling it. The power of giving permanent shape to impressions received by the eye is the prerogative of man alone. We have words for everything about us and can imitate all objects, and, over and above that, we have music and pure thought. What rich stores of knowledge and delight are at man's disposal.

We have pa.s.sed three sad, sorrowful days. The grandmother was ill. The whole household was in alarm. Hansei feared the worst and did not venture to leave the farm. It was a comfort to me to find that my nursing did the grandmother so much good.

Hansei, proud as he is of being a great farmer, was so anxious to do something for the mother, that he chopped the wood with which to make a fire in her room, and carried it in, himself.

He always told the doctor to spare no expense. Nothing was too dear, or too good for the grandmother.

The doctor explained the grandmother's illness to me, just as if I were a physician.

She often sent Uncle Peter out into the woods to me. It was still raw out there, and we soon returned.

The grandmother is well again, and is sitting in the spring suns.h.i.+ne.

"Yes, one must have been out of the world, to be grateful for coming back again," said she. "One who doesn't get away doesn't know what it is to come back." She had much to tell me about the deaths of her five children. "This one would have been so old, and this one so old," she kept on saying. In imagination, they had grown up with her. Then she told me of her husband's death: how he had been dragged into the lake by the driftwood, and drowned; and how Hansei had remained with them afterward. "He was a strange man," she always said of her husband, "but good-hearted."

During his sister's illness, the little pitchman was in great despair.

"She was the pride of our family," he kept on saying, as if she were already dead. But now he is the happiest of us all, and when the grandmother sat on my bench under the maple tree, for the first time, he said: "I'll get a golden seat in heaven for making that bench. The king hasn't got a finer place than that, and he can't get any one to paint bluer skies or greener woods for him than we can see from here."

I am quite distressed by what the little pitchman tells me. He brings me word that the man who purchases my work intends to pay me a visit.

He has just received an order to furnish carved wainscotings for the palace at the king's new hunting-seat, and wishes to see me about them.

How shall I avoid meeting him?

The good mother has helped me out of my trouble. She received him when he came, and told him that I would see no one. She would not consent to tell a falsehood, a point on which Walpurga would have had less scruples.

I now have the working designs, and beautiful woods with which to carry them out, for I have undertaken to execute a portion of the order.

It matters little what manner of life one leads, so long as there is self-awakening and self-consciousness. All arts, all science, merely exist in order that our own consciousness may be acted upon and aroused by that of others. He who can do this unaided is fortunate. He who awakes of himself when it is time to go to work in the morning, has no need of a watchman to call him.

Hansei has become a juryman. Walpurga is quite proud of it, and when he took leave of us, it was with a certain air of pride and importance.

The idea of appealing to the conscience of the people for the verdict of justice, is a beautiful one.

Hansei has returned, and had many terrible stories to tell.

It seems to me as if our lives and destinies were nothing more than shadows playing on the wall.

Hansei was deeply affected when he said to us:

"Yes, all my sins came back to me, and I felt as if I were doing penance when I p.r.o.nounced judgment on others. It's nothing but good luck that prevents us from falling into sinful ways and keeps us off of the anxious bench."

(Sunday, May 28th.)--The grandmother is dead.

I cannot write of it. My hand seems as if paralyzed.

She kissed my eyes and said: "I kiss your eyes, and hope they may never weep again."

Two hours before her death, she said to Hansei:

"Make a sled for Burgei. She is so anxious to have one. It'll please me if you do. You needn't fear, she won't harm herself. I beg of you, do it."

"Yes, yes, grandmother!" replied Hansei, with thick voice, and deeply affected by the thought that, even then, the grandmother's only care was for Burgei's pleasure.

The fear of death lies heavily upon me, and yet I feel an inward sense of freedom. I have beheld a beautiful end. My hand closed her eyes in death. I had not believed that I could do it. There was a time when I could not, when I lay on the floor feeling as if I were buried far under the earth, and beside me lay my father, cold in death.

The grandmother's death has relieved me of all fear. I am able to a.s.sist Walpurga. Her lamentations are excessive. "Now I'm an orphan like you!" she cried, throwing herself on my bosom. Then she cried to the dead one: "Oh mother! how can you be so cruel as to leave me? Oh G.o.d! and there's the bird still hopping about its cage. Yes, you can jump about! but mother never will again!"

She took a cloth and covered the crossbill's cage with it, saying: "I'd like to let you fly, you dear little creature, but I can't. Mother loved you so much that I can't let you go." And then, addressing the corpse, she said: "Oh mother! can there ever be suns.h.i.+ne when you're not here? Yes, the clock ticks and keeps on going, and can be wound up.

But, oh! the hours that will come and go without you! G.o.d forgive me for the many hours I was away from you!"

The door of the clothes-press suddenly flew open and startled Walpurga.

Regaining her self-command, she said: "Yes, yes; I'll wear your clothes.

I'll wear them for the sake of good. No evil thought shall enter my heart, no evil word pa.s.s my lips. Help me, so that I may always be yours! Oh G.o.d! there's no one left to say 'child' to me! I remember how you said: 'So long as you can say, father, and mother, there is yet a love that bears you in its arms. It's only when the parents are gone, that one is set down on the cold ground.' I'll hold fast to all you've told me to do, and so shall my children. And, Irmgard, you remember many other wise sayings, don't you?"

Such was the burden of Walpurga's lament, and I could only reply:

"Yes, and hold fast to one thing she said: 'One may sin even in speech.' Don't give way to your grief."