The woman ran about the room looking for matches, and yet the torch was
still burning. "Now he is going to die!" she moaned.
When at last the red wax-taper was alight, and she had given it him and
he held it clasped with both his hands, and she had taken the vessel of
holy water from the shelf, she became apparently quite calm and prayed
aloud: "Jesus, Mary, help him! Oh, Saints of God, stand by him in his
direst need, do not let his soul be lost! Jesus, I pray by Thy holiest
suffering! Mary, I call upon Thy seven Sacred Dolours! And Thou, his
guardian angel, when the soul must quit the body, lead it at last to
heavenly joy!"
And she prayed long. She neither sobbed nor cried now; not a single
tear stood in her eye, she was wholly the devout petitioner and
intercessor.
At length she became silent, bent over her husband's face, watched his
weak breathing and whispered, "God be with you, Seppel; greet my
parents for me and all our kinsfolk there in Eternity. God bless and
keep you, my dearest man! May the holy angels attend you, and the Lord
Jesus in His mercy await you at the heavenly door."
Perhaps he no longer heard her. His pale, half-open lips gave no
answer. His eyes stared at the ceiling. The wax candle, held upright in
the folded hands, was burning; it did not flicker. The flame was still
and bright as a snow-white bud, his breath moved it no more.
"Now it's over--he's dead and gone from me!" cried his wife in a
shrill, heartrending voice; then sank down upon a stool and began to
weep bitterly. The children, now again wakened, wept with her, all
except the baby, who was smiling.
The hour weighed upon us heavy as a stone. At last the poor woman--the
widow--rose, dried her tears and laid two fingers on the eyes of the
dead. The wax candle burned until the morning dawned.
A messenger had passed through the forest. Then came the Woodman Josel.
He sprinkled the dead with holy water, murmuring, "So they go, one
after the other."
Then they dressed Meisensepp out in his best clothes, carried him into
the porch, and laid him on the board.
I left the book on the table for the vigil of the following nights at
which I had promised the poor woman to read. When I was ready to go,
she brought a green hat on which was fastened a spreading
"Gemsbart."[9]
"Will you take the hat with you for your father?" she asked; "my Seppel
has always been so fond of your father. The Gemsbart you may keep
yourself as a remembrance. Say an Our Father for him now and then."
I uttered my thanks and cast one more timid look at the bier. There lay
Sepp stretched at full length, and his hands folded across his breast.
And I went away down through the forest. How bright and fresh with dew,
how full of the song of birds, full of the scent of flowers--how full
of life the forest was! And in the hut, stretched on the bier, lay a
dead man.
I can never forget that night and that morning--that death amidst the
forest's infinite source of life.
To this day I keep the Gemsbart in memory of Meisensepp. And whenever a
desire for the pleasures of this world gets hold of me, or when doubts
of God's grace to man, or fear of my own possibly far-off, possibly
quite near end assail me, I just stick Sepp's Gemsbart in my hat.