She looked steadily at him and replied: "Honoured sir! that which is
past may be repented of, but can never be undone!" and went on her way.
He was struck with her face. He had never before seen one so full of
boundless sorrow--almost of despair.
His eyes followed her as she walked towards the mill-stream, and there
she took her place on the wooden bridge that crossed it, leaning over
the handrail, and looking down into the water. An impulse of curiosity
and of interest led him to follow her at a distance, and he saw her pick
a flower, a pansy, out of her basket, and drop it into the current,
which caught and carried it forward. Then she took a second, and allowed
it to fall into the water. Then, after an interval, a third--a fourth;
and he counted seven in all. After that she bowed her head on her hands;
her grey hair fell over them, and she broke into a paroxysm of weeping.
The traveller, standing by the stream, saw the seven pansies swept down,
and one by one pass over the revolving wheel and vanish.
He turned himself about to return to his inn, when, seeing a grave
peasant near, he asked: "Who is that poor old woman who seems so broken
down with sorrow?"
"That," replied the man, "is the Mother of Pansies."
"The Mother of Pansies!" he repeated.
"Well--it is the name she has acquired in the place. Actually, she is
called Anna Arler, and is a widow. She was the wife of one Joseph Arler,
a jäger, who was shot by smugglers. But that is many, many years ago.
She is not right in her head, but she is harmless. When her husband was
brought home dead, she insisted on being left alone in the night by him,
before he was buried alone,--with his coffin. And what happened in that
night no one knows. Some affirm that she saw ghosts. I do not know--she
may have had Thoughts. The French word for these flowers is
_pensées_--thoughts--and she will have none others. When they are in her
garden she collects them, and does as she has done now. When she has
none, she goes about to her neighbours and begs them. She comes here
every evening and throws in seven--just seven, no more and no less--and
then weeps as one whose heart would split. My wife on one occasion
offered her forget-me-nots. 'No,' she said; 'I cannot send
forget-me-nots after those who never were, I can send only Pansies.'"