The sun has risen twice since the night of the barricades. A wondrously
beautiful spring day is shining upon the immense city. The splendid
palaces show their noble outlines clearly against the bright sky, while
their mighty columns and richly-adorned friezes are bathed in the
golden morning sun. And so there are bathing in the same golden morning
sun thousands and thousands of happy men who wander in endless crowds
through the city. All the pilgrims feel like pious pilgrims who have
long painfully wandered through desert wastes and over rough mountains
to the sacred image of Our Lady, and at last they behold the Holy One,
and she smiles upon them forgiveness of their sins, and peace and joy
and hearty confidence. Now they go back to their homes, silent and full
of emotion, or loud in pious songs, praising the Holy One who has done
wondrously for them....
"Poor, gullible people! As if all the saints of the almanac could help
you if you do not help yourself--as if the sins of a generation could
be atoned for in a single night--as if a diseased state could be cured
in a day! You are willing to forget and to forgive those who have
never, never forgiven you anything, and who will never forget that you
have sinned against them as they look upon it. Your houses still show
the traces of the fratricidal struggle. Your roofs, from which in your
despair you hurled stones upon the heads of your enemies, are still
uncovered. The pavements which you tore up to form a wall against
reckless tyranny, have not yet been replaced. The dead even, who shed
their blood for you, have not yet been buried. The wounded--the
mortally wounded, are still waiting on their sorrowful couch for the
hour of release----"
It was Oldenburg who spoke these words to himself as he stood in one of
the windows of the hotel, and looked down upon the people who now
merrily swarmed over the place where two days ago a huge barricade had
been erected; where men had fought with bitter hatred and gallant
bravery; where many a noble patriot had breathed his last.
Two of these victims were in the hotel.
Below, a few feet only above the pavement on which joyous crowds were
thronging, a pale man was lying in his coffin, from whose face a gray
beard was flowing in ample locks over a deep wound, from which night
before last his heart's blood has escaped.
And in the same room, on his bed of sorrow, lay a young man who had
been mortally wounded by the side of the gray-haired enthusiast, and
whose powerful, youthful strength had so far struggled fearfully with
pitiless death, causing him unspeakable suffering.
After the charge in which Berger fell and Oswald received his fatal
wound, the troops had not renewed the attack; partly because the
position was really held to be impregnable, partly because hesitation
prevailed among the ruling spirits, and partly because the death of
Prince Waldenberg, who had led the last charge with almost rapturous
bravery and had fallen in the attack, had disheartened the men, so that
the leaders dreaded a second failure. They had contented themselves
with an occasional fire at the barricade; and at last, towards five
o'clock, the last shot had been fired.
Oldenburg had stood by his post till he was certain that no new attack
was to be expected, and that the troops had received orders to retreat.
Only then he had called Schmenckel, who had stood by him like a true
squire through the whole fight, and they had left the partially
abandoned barricade the last of them all.
Schmenckel had told Oldenburg that same night, with big tears rolling
down his cheeks, that the officer who had fallen before their eyes, had
been his son. Oldenburg had been greatly surprised when he heard the
somewhat confused account which honest Caspar Schmenckel gave of his
life, and especially the events of the last days--the plot of poor
Albert Timm, whose body had been carried to the hospital--of brave
Jeremy Goodheart, who had led the surprise in the Dismal Hole, and who
had been the first to escape--the interviews between Count Malikowsky
and the Princess Letbus, and the manner in which Albert Timm had
boasted he could transform Oswald Stein at any moment into a Baron
Grenwitz.
Oldenburg knew the world, and especially the higher regions mentioned
in Schmenckel's story, too well to doubt for a moment that the events
he narrated were possible or even plausible.
Did Oswald know his own history? But after all that was now perfectly
immaterial. Death was not likely to make any difference between the son
of Baron Harald and the son of Mr. Stein, teacher of languages; and
Oswald was no longer his own, he belonged to death.
That had been ascertained an hour after he had been wounded. About that
time medical aid had been procured; Doctor Braun arrived in company
with Melitta. The latter had still been with Sophie when old Baumann
brought the news of the conflict and that Oldenburg was in command at
the barricade in Broad street. Melitta had at once decided to join
Oldenburg, and Sophie saw very well that Franz could not stay at home,
when so many thousands were risking their lives, and therefore said
nothing when he declared his intention to accompany Melitta. Old
Baumann and Bemperlein, who were also present, were to stay with Sophie
to guard her and the children.
Melitta and Franz found much difficulty in making their way, and it was
only after several hours wandering, and often at the peril of their
lives, that they reached Broad street.
To see his beloved there, was, however, ample compensation to Oldenburg
for all he had endured. Melitta embraced and kissed him amid tears, in
Braun's presence; she clung to his arm and could not let him go again.
She had trembled for his life, and was all joy now to find him again,
blackened with powder but in the full glory of his manhood, till he
whispered in her ear that Oswald was lying, mortally wounded, in one of
the rooms of the hotel. Then Melitta had withdrawn her arm from his,
and had said--pale and distressed, but not overcome--that she would
attend to the poor man, as it was her duty.
Since then a day and a night had passed--an eternity for those who
watched by the bedside of the patient. The wounded man suffered
indescribable agony. He would now rise madly, so that it required all
of Schmenckel's gigantic strength to put him back in his bed, and now
describe volubly all the fearful images which crowded his overwrought
brain. He who in life was so reserved, had thus revealed the secret of
his birth, a revelation which perfectly overwhelmed Mrs. Black, and
made her bitterly regret her long-continued longing for Marie, which
was so sadly gratified by the sight of Marie's son--on his death-bed.
The old lady, however, remitted none of her tender cares; she was ever
busy; and if for moments nothing could be done, she folded her hands
and prayed Heaven to save the son of her darling daughter.
But that had been from the beginning a hopeless wish. Franz had
immediately pronounced Oswald's wound fatal, and given him one or at
best two days' life. It is possible, however, he added, that he may
recover his consciousness once more before he dies.
Melitta looked forward to that moment with great sadness. She now knew
that she loved Oswald only as an unfortunate brother. Oswald had not
once mentioned her name in all his wanderings; he had only spoken of a
dear, sweet woman, against whom he had sinned grievously, and who could
never forgive him for what he had done. This recollection had each time
brought bitter tears to his eyes, and Melitta had wiped them from his
face and wished she could tell him that she had long since forgiven him
all.
Then the wounded man had groaned so loud that Oldenburg turned quickly
from the window and stepped up to the bed where Melitta was sitting.
But the groan had not been one of pain; it was the deep breathing of a
breath which had been relieved of an unbearable burden. What Franz had
foretold had happened now--the pain had left him, and with it the last
hope of life.
As long as the pain of the torn vitals had raged within him the mind of
the poor sufferer had been sunk in an abyss of horror, amid hideous
masks that stared at him through hollow eyes, amid monsters that tore
him with their sharp teeth, and dead men who glided by wrapped in their
winding sheets, and displaying as they turned some sweet faces that had
been dear to him. And the abyss had grown still darker--he had been
driven through narrow crevices, pursued by demoniac howls which
re-echoed fearfully from the bare rocky walls, and the hot breath of
hell all around him. Then he heard a voice calling, Oswald! Oswald! And
at the silvery sound of this dear soft voice all the masks and monsters
had vanished and the howling of demons had ceased. The hot, narrow
passages widened into lofty, airy halls which began to sway gently to
and fro, so that there were no longer arches of stone but the majestic
tops of venerable, giant trees, with merrily singing birds skipping
through the green foliage, and here and there golden rays of the sun.
And again the voice called Oswald! Oswald! and he flew towards the
sound, through the dark shady woods, over mossy ground, through which
silvery veins of water were playing. And it grew lighter and lighter
around him; his eye saw beyond the cool twilight, which felt so sweet
and pleasant to him, a land full of blooming life, of golden harvests,
and smiling sunshine. And as his eye eagerly drew in the unaccustomed
sight there came floating over the flowery fields and the ripening
wheat-fields two lofty, beautiful forms. At first he did not know them,
but as they came nearer he recognized both. They were Oldenburg and
Melitta; and he stretched out his arms towards them and said: "You dear
and good ones! can you forgive me?"
Then they bent over him, and he felt their kisses on his lips. He would
have wept aloud with blissful delight, but he could not. Sweet
weariness flowed through his limbs. He wanted to open his eyes, but a
dear warm hand softly closed them; the land of harvests and sunshine
faded away, the lofty forms floated back into soft mists, the woods
sounded louder, he was drawn back again into the cool twilight, and
then it was night aboriginal, eternal night.
* * * * *
And once more the spring sun has risen twice, and once more the immense
city wears a festive air; but the color of this solemnity is that of
mourning, for the feast they celebrate is the feast of the dead.
Black banners are waving from the towers and parapets of the royal
palace; mourning crape is floating from all the windows; crape is seen
on the bonnets of ladies and on the hats of men, on the arms of
countless numbers, who are all making their way towards the beautiful
open square in the heart of the city, where, amid temples bathed in the
rays of the noon-day sun, the coffins of all the victims of that night
of terror are standing on a huge platform. One hundred and eighty-seven
coffins, some containing women and children, innocent flowers, that
fell under the pitiless scythe when the grim mowers of the bloody
harvest were reaping the field on which the seed of liberty was to have
ripened.
And even this did not complete the bloody harvest. The hospitals, as
well as numberless private houses, had besides their wounded men, many
of whom were never to see the golden day of freedom.
And now the bells begin to toll solemnly on all the steeples--the same
bells which in the night of the barricade had rang the alarm.
The church ceremonies are ended. The procession is in motion. A
procession such as that city had never seen; such as the world's
history perhaps never recorded.
In endless length the coffins with their rich loads of flowers are
borne on the shoulders of citizens, and twenty thousand men of every
age and every rank form the escort. On every coffin is a paper with the
name of the deceased. Unmeaning names! Who was Oswald Stein? Who was
Eberhard Wolfgang Berger?
What is there in a name? What matters it who they were in life? what
they did and suffered, blundered and sinned, desired and failed to
achieve? All desires are crowned, all sins are expiated, by their dying
for freedom. This was felt by the hundred thousands who stood on both
sides of the streets through which the procession moved, reverently
baring their heads before every coffin.
And thus the endless procession moves slowly in silent, solemn
stillness to its destination, a high hill at one of the gates of the
city, where the men of the barricades have on the day before dug out an
immense square hole. The procession enters the cutting. The bearers
quietly set down the coffins and move on, and so the others, till the
whole procession has passed out again.
And the thousands are standing around in solemn silence. Guns are fired
and a whole nation prays at the graves of its martyrs.
For whom?
For the dead?
They need their pious wishes no longer in their cool resting places, in
their eternal sleep.
But the living?
Their lot is not worse, but harder. They must work and be useful in the
hot dust of every day's life, without rest or repose, for tyranny never
sleeps. They must work and watch, lest the night come once more in
which the brave feel sad and the wicked delight; that night full of
romantic masks and fantastic spectres; that night so poor in sound
strong men, and so rich in problematic characters; that long, wretched
night, out of which only the thunderstorm of revolution can lead
through bloody dawn to freedom and to light.
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's Through Night to Light, by Friedrich Spielhagen