LORETZ ON THE TROMBONE.
Later in the afternoon, toward sunset, Leonhard left the gardens and
walked slowly down the street, taking cognizance of all things in his
way. He noticed that Taste had taken Haste in hand in many a place, and
that already attempts were evident to repair and amend or construct
anew. What might not be done toward making a paradise of such a place
under the encouragement of a man like Albert Spener? But a probationer!
That meant, Say that you will present yourself to Moravian brethren as a
candidate for admission to their fellowship. He smiled at the thought,
but when he considered the opportunities of work Spener would put in his
way, he began to look grave. Of course he must give up his music: it was
no profession for him, and he saw that it was folly and weakness to
attempt the service of two masters; and yet he will go back and talk
with Mrs. Anna about Herrnhut and old Leonhard Marten. Just here comes
the sound of a trombone cleaving the air.
It startles him, and it startles others also. "Who is gone?" he hears
one man ask another from his place in the garden; and he understands
that the trombone has made an announcement to the people of Spenersberg.
How the notes wind along, a noble stream of solemn sound!
"Who is gone home?" he hears another ask, but again there is no answer.
He sees a group of children stopping in the midst of their play and
looking at each other with scared faces--one little one suddenly hiding
its face in its mother's apron, as if in the shrinking shyness and awe
of apprehension.
As he approaches his destination a ghostlike face and figure startles
Leonhard: he looks back and sees it is "our little minister, Wenck,"
whom Spener had pointed out to him in their morning walk. He is hurrying
down the street, and it is not likely that any one will stop a man
proceeding at such a rate, with questions.
Loretz stands on his piazza with his trombone in his hand: it is he who
blows that blast which echoes through Spenersberg, announcing a death.
Doubting what the signal means, Leonhard, with a little hesitation,
approaches his host and looks for the information he does not ask. Is it
a calamity that has overtaken the house? One could hardly gather from a
glance at Mr. Loretz. Evidently the stout little man has been moved by
some powerful surprise: his eyes are full of agitation; his dress
betokens it; he has been driven to and fro, distracted, within the hour.
When he sees Leonhard his excitement exhibits itself in a new form: he
lifts the trombone to his lips, and taking another key he sounds again;
it is a note of solemn triumph, so prolonged that it would seem as if
the desire was that all space should be filled with the echoes thereof.
Leonhard sits down on one of the large wooden chairs in the piazza to
enjoy the music: then Loretz comes to him and says, "You have heard it?"
"I have heard it?" repeated Leonhard, interrogatively.
"Sister Benigna--"
"What is it, sir?" exclaimed Leonhard, starting to his feet.
"She has gone home."
"Good God!" exclaimed Leonhard. "Do you mean to say that she is dead?"
"We call it going home," answered Loretz.
"But gone home! When, why, how did she go?"
"It shocks you," said Loretz, finding perhaps not a little satisfaction
in seeing this stranger so moved. He had himself been so horrified by
Benigna's silent, unlooked-for departure, and to be shocked and
horrified by death was so undesirable and so fought against among good
Moravians, that Leonhard's emotion, and much more than emotion, seemed a
real solace for the moment. "We don't know how it was," he continued.
"My daughter was to go to practice the music with her in the hall after
school, and when she went into the school-room she found Sister Benigna
sitting at her desk with _The Messiah_ open. But she was gone. We had in
Doctor Hummel, and he says it was the heart. He has thought, he says,
for a year or so, that there must be some feeble action of the valves.
She went to him a twelvemonth since about it, and he told her his
opinion; but he told her she might live fifty years yet, though she
_might_ go any day. She never mentioned it to us. But Hummel says when
he told her she said it was good news. Yet, sir, you never saw a happier
creature. You saw her last night and this morning. Well, sir, that's a
fair sample--busy all the time, and happy as happy."
"But are you sure that nothing could be done for her?" exclaimed
Leonhard, to whom the quiet and calm into which Loretz had talked
himself was anything but composing.
"Perfectly sure. If you should look at her once you would see. But I
must go back to my women. Will you make yourself at home within? We
shall all be back in an hour or so."
Leonhard said he would go to the Brethren's House and spend the night
there, but Loretz said hastily, "I was afraid you would be thinking of
that, sir. Stay with us: we want your company. We shall not bring
Sister Benigna here. If she had--had died here, we should have carried
her to the corpse-house this evening. It is but a short distance from
the factory, and she will lie there to-night. And--I have been
thinking--to-morrow evening we must celebrate our congregation festival
with her funeral."
"Then if I had not come just when I did," thought Leonhard, "I should
never have seen Sister Benigna. If the truth could be known, I don't
believe the woman has known any greater pleasure in a long time than I
gave her when I made those suggestions last evening. Only twenty-four
hours, and it might be a year! She ought to have lived until after the
festival. How she would have enjoyed it! I should like to look at Spener
when he hears that the woman is actually out of the world. It would be a
bad job for him if it had happened to be the other one. Jupiter!
wouldn't I like to know whether it is better to be lamented by the
community, so far as the community's principles will allow it to lament,
or to spread devastation all around in the way this little Miss Elise
couldn't help doing if she should be 'called home,' as they say!
Musician answers one way, architect the other. Have you the nerve to go
in and touch that piano, Probationer Marten?"
Rex tremendae Majestatis,
Qui salvandos salvas gratis,
Salva me, Fons Pietatis!
What voice was this which made the house resound, and thrilled the
hearts of the listeners at the gate as they stood there for a moment in
the moonlight?
"I left Mr. Marten within," said Loretz to his wife and daughter.
"He is singing the Requiem," said Elise. They waited a moment longer,
but just then Leonhard stepped over the window-sill, and began pacing
the piazza with his arms folded on his breast, his head bent. The words
he sang in fact had electrified him, and the rush of thoughts had driven
him from the piano.
Salva me, Fons Pietatis!