We saw a faint gleam coming from the window of Meisensepp's house.
Going nearer, we met the priest who had administered the Last Sacrament
to the dying man.
"Father, is he going to get well?" asked the girl, fearfully.
"He is not so very old," said the priest. "God's will be done,
children; God's will be done."
And he went on, while we went into the house.
It was small, and, after the manner of forest huts, living-room and
bedroom were all one with the kitchen. On the hearth in an iron holder
a pine-torch was burning which veiled the ceiling in a cloud of smoke.
Near by, on a bundle of straw, two little boys lay sleeping. I knew
them well, for we had often gathered mushrooms and berries together in
the woods and lost our herds while doing it: they were a few years
younger than I. By the wall of the stove sat Sepp's wife, giving the
breast to the baby and looking with wide-open eyes into the flame of
the pine-torch; and behind the stove, on the only bed in the house, lay
the sick man. He was sleeping; his face was wasted, the greyish hair
and the beard round the chin had been cut short, which made the whole
head appear smaller to me than formerly when I had seen Sepp on the way
to church. Through his pale, half-open lips fluttered the broken
breathing.
On our entrance his wife got up gently, made some apology for having
had me disturbed in my sleep, and invited me to sit down and eat what
the priest had left of a dish of eggs which still stood on the table.
And so, seated on the chair that was still warm from the holy man's
sitting, I was soon actually eating with the same fork which he had
carried to his mouth!
"Now he's sleeping fairly well," whispered the woman, indicating the
sick man. "A little while ago he was constantly pulling threads from
the coverlet."
I knew it was looked upon as a bad omen when a sick person pulled at
and dug into the coverlet: "He's digging his grave," they say with us.
I therefore answered, "Yes, that's what my father did, too, when he had
typhoid fever; still, he got well again."
"I think so, too," she said; "and the priest was saying the same thing.
I am so glad my Sepp has always gone to confession so regular, and I
feel quite hopeful about his getting well again. Only," she added very
low, "the light keeps flickering to and fro the whole time."
According to popular belief, when the light flickers, it is an omen
that someone's candle is burning low in the socket. I believed in this
sign myself, but to reassure the poor woman I said, "There's such a
draught coming through the window, I can feel it too." She laid the
sleeping baby upon the straw--the girl who had fetched me had already
gone to rest there--and we stopped the cracks of the window with tow.
Then the woman said, "You'll stay with me overnight, won't you, Peter?
I shouldn't know how to get along otherwise; and when he awakes you
will read to us? I am sure you'll do us this kindness, won't you?"
I opened the book and looked for a suitable piece, but Father Cochem
has not written much that would be of consolation to poor suffering
mankind. Father Cochem's opinion is that God is infinitely just and
that men are unutterably bad, and nine-tenths of them are bound
straight for hell.
Maybe it is so, I used to think to myself; but even if it is one ought
not to say so, because people would only worry, and for the rest would
most likely remain as bad as ever. If they had wanted to mend, they
would have done so long ago.
Terrifying thoughts went like a hissing adder through Cochem's book.
Whenever I had to do with indifferent people, who only listened to me
on account of my fine loud preaching voice, I thundered forth all the
horrors and the eternal damnation of mankind with real pleasure; but
when by a sick-bed I used to exert my imagination to the utmost while
reading out of the book, in order to soften the hard sayings, to
moderate the hideous representations of the Four Last Things, and to
give a friendlier tone to the whole thought of the zealous Father.
And now again I planned how, while apparently reading from the book, I
would speak to Meisensepp words from another Book about poverty,
patience, and love towards our fellows, and how the true imitation of
Christ consisted in the practice of these, and how--when the last hour
should strike--this would lead us by way of a gentle death right into
heaven.
At last Sepp awoke. He turned his head, looked at his wife and
sleeping children, then, seeing me, he said in a loud, clear voice, "So
you've come, Peter? God reward you for it! But we shall hardly have
time for reading to-day. Anne, please wake the children up."
The woman shuddered, her hand went to her heart, but she said quietly,
"Are you worse again, Seppel? You've been sleeping so nicely."
He saw at once that her calmness was not genuine.
"Don't you fret, wife," he said, "it must be so in this world. Wake the
children up now, but gently, so that you don't scare them."
The poor woman went to the bed of straw, and with trembling hand shook
the bundle, and the little ones started up only half awake.
"Anne, I beg you don't pull the children about so," the sick man
reproached her, with a weaker voice, "and let little Martha sleep, she
doesn't understand things yet."
I remained seated by the table, and my heart burned within me. The
little family gathered round the bed, sobbing aloud.
"Quietly now," said Sepp to the children; "mother will let you sleep
all the longer to-morrow morning. Josefa, draw the shirt together over
your breast or you will get cold.--Now then, children, you must always
be brave and good and obedient to your mother, and when you are grown
up you must stand by her and don't leave her. All my days I've toiled
and moiled, but for all that I've nothing else to leave you beyond this
house, with the little garden and the ridge-acre with the stacks. If
you want to divide it up, do so in a brotherly way; but it is better to
keep the little property together, and keep the home going, somehow,
and till the ground. Beyond that I make no will. I love you all alike.
Don't forget me, and now and then say an Our Father for me. And you
four boys, I beg from my very heart, don't start poaching--it leads to
no good. Give me your hand on it. There, that's right! If one of you
would like to learn saw-sharpening--I have earned many a penny with
it and the tools are all there. And then, as you know already, if you
plant potatoes on the ridge-acre, you must do so in May. It's quite
true, what my father always used to say, 'Of potatoes it is said:
"Plant me in April, I come when I will; plant me in May, I'm there in a
day."' Bear that saying in mind! There, now go to bed again, or you
will catch cold; always take care of your health; health is everything.
Go to sleep, children."
The sick man became silent and fell to plucking at his covering again.
Turning to me the woman whispered, "I don't like it, he's talking too
much." When a very sick person becomes suddenly talkative that too is
looked upon as a bad omen with us.
Then he lay quite exhausted. The woman lit a death-taper.
"Not yet, Anne, not yet," he murmured, "a little later; but give me a
drop of water, will you?"
After drinking he said, "Ah, fresh water is a good thing after all!
Take good care of the well. Yes, and don't let me forget, the black
breeches and the blue jacket--you know--and outside behind the door,
where the saws hang, there leans the planing board; lay it across the
grindstone and the bench--it will serve for the three days. To-morrow
early, when Woodman Josel comes, he'll help to lay me out. But mind
that the cat isn't about; cats are attracted and know at once when
there is a corpse anywhere. It's all arranged what they'll do with me
down at the Parish Church.--My brown coat and the big hat, give them to
the poor. And to Peter you must give something because of his coming up
here. Perhaps he will be good enough to read to-morrow. It will be a
fine day to-morrow, but don't go far from home, for fear an accident
might happen, when there's candles left burning in the entrance. Later
on, Anne, look in the bedstraw and you will find an old stocking with a
few gold pieces in it."
"Seppel, don't exert yourself with talking so much," sobbed the wife.
"Well, well, Anne--but I must tell you everything. We'll not be much
longer together now. We have had twenty years, Anne. You have been
everything to me; no one can repay you for what you have been to me. I
shall never forget it, not in death, nor in heaven neither. I am only
glad that in my last hour I am still able to talk to you, and that I am
clear in my head to the last."
"Don't fret yourself, Seppel," murmured the wife, bending over him.
"No," he answered quietly, "with me it's just as it was with my father:
content in life, content in death. You be the same, and don't take it
too much to heart. Even though each of us must go as we came, alone,
still we belong to each other and I shall keep you a place in heaven,
Anne, close by my side. Only, for God's sake, bring the children up
well."
The children lay quiet. It was very still, and it seemed to me as if,
somewhere in the room, I could hear a slight whirring and humming.