The people were preparing the litter. Father knelt behind the door and
prayed; the sisters wept in their pinafores; and my little brother
sobbed terribly. The poor little fellow tried to keep in his tears, for
he had heard that all was for the best with mother and that she was now
enjoying peace in Heaven: he had smiled a little at that; but now,
when the people were making ready to carry mother away for good and
all, there was no comfort left in his sorely-afflicted little heart.
I took little brother by the hand and we went into the furthermost dark
corner of the room, where no one else was and where only our sick
mother had cared to sit. There we sat down on the bench. And there we
sat while everything was being prepared outside, while the people sat
down to table and shared the funeral repast.
They had come to show us sympathy; now they were eating, now they were
laughing and then again they acted as was customary; and they actually
rejoiced that one more person had died and, in so doing, brought
variety into their everyday lives.
Suddenly, loud words were heard outside:
"Where is the _Überthan_? We can't find the _Überthan_."
The _Überthan_ is a thin linen pall which is wrapped round the coffin
like a veil and, in the popular belief, serves him or her who has risen
from the dead as a garment on the Day of Judgment.
Father was roused from his prayers by the shouting; he now staggered
around and looked for the linen sheet in his press, on the shelves and
in every nook and corner. Why, he had brought it home only yesterday;
and now it was nowhere to be found! He had really lost his head: he had
to see that all got something to eat; he had to change into his Sunday
clothes to go to church; he had to comfort his children; he had to
fetch a new candle, because the old one was burnt down to its socket
and the people were like to find themselves in the dark; he had to go
to the shed and give the cattle fodder enough to last them all day, for
there would be no one at home; and now he was expected to say where he
had put the pall yesterday, in his confusion. And, in the next few
minutes, they would be carrying his wife out of the house!
It was one great excitement.
"So the old man has no pall!" they grumbled. "Such a thing has never
been known: carrying out a dead person all naked and bare. But it must
be true with the poor woodman's wife: a pauper she lived and a pauper
she died!"
My two sisters began to hunt in their turn; and Maria exclaimed,
plaintively:
"Dear Jesus, my mother mustn't be buried without a pall; she would do
better than that to stay at home here; and I will give my
christening-money and buy her her last dress. Who was it put away the
linen sheet? O God, they want to deny her the last thing of all, as
well as all the rest!"
I tried to calm the girl and said we should be sure to get a linen
sheet out in the village and, if not, then she must rest in peace under
the bare deal boards.
"How can you speak like that!" she cried. "Didn't mother in her time
buy your clothes for you out of her hard-saved kreuzers? And now you
want her to rise on the Day of Judgment in her shabby clothes, when all
the others are wearing a white garment!"
She burst into loud crying and leant her glowing forehead against the
wall.
But, soon after, the people breathed again: they had found the pall.
And, when they had eaten--we others did not take a bite--and everything
was ready, they opened the door of the front passage and knelt down
before the coffin and prayed aloud, saying Our Lord's Five Wounds.
Then four men placed the coffin on the litter and lifted it up and
carried it out of the poor dwelling into the wood and thence over the
commons and fields and through mountain forests.
And round about was the winter night and over all hung the starry sky.
One more look at the empty bier-plank and then I quickly drew my
little brother out with me; and father and sisters also hurried after;
and the elder brother locked the door; and then the cottage in the wood
lay there in the dark and in the deepest stillness. Life had left
it--and death had left it: there is no greater loneliness possible.
We heard the hum of the praying funeral procession, we saw the flicker
of the two or three lanterns among the trunks of the trees. The bearers
walked at a quick pace; those who followed and prayed could hardly keep
up with them on the rough, snow-covered paths. I was a long way behind
with my little brother: the boy could not walk so fast. Mother would
never have left us behind like that, when living: she would have
waited, laughing a little and chiding a little, and led the child by
the hand. Now, however, she only longed for rest.
Outside the parish village stands a tall cross, with a life-size figure
of the Saviour. Here, after a many-hours' progress up and down hill,
they set the coffin on the ground and waited for the doctor, who came
from the village to view the corpse and give the death-certificate.
But, by the time that we two, who had lagged behind, came up, the
coffin-lid was hammered down again. And so I was never able to see you
again on earth, my mother!
They entered the parish church in the morning twilight.
The clear bells rang out together. A great catafalque was set up in the
middle of the dark church; many candles gleamed; and a solemn funeral
service began. The parish priest, an old, blind man, with snow-white
hair, a venerable figure, intoned the requiem, surrounded by priests in
rich vestments. His voice was clear and solemn; a choir chanted the
responses; and trumpets and sackbuts echoed through the church.
I looked at father and he at me; we knew not who had ordered all this
so. To-day I know that it was my friends at Krieglach who gave us this
beautiful token of their love.
When the funeral service was over, the catafalque was removed, all the
festal candles on the high-altar were lit and three priests, no longer
clad in the hue of mourning, but in red, gold-stitched chasubles,
climbed the steps of the altar and a grand High Mass was celebrated,
with gay bell-ringing and joyous music.
"That is because she is released from her suffering," said I to the
boy.
At last, the coffin, richly decked with flowers, swayed out of the
parish church, where, in the old days, the woodman's wife had been
baptised and married, on its way to the cemetery. The priests and the
choir sang the loud, clear requiem, the bells tolled over the village
far out into the woods and the candles flickered in the sunlight. A
long train of men and women passed through the broad village street. We
walked behind the coffin, carrying lighted candles in our hands and
praying as we went.
The cemetery lies outside the village, on a gentle eminence, between
fields and meadows. It is far from small, for the parish stretches to a
great distance over hill and dale. It is enclosed with a plank fence
and contains many crosses of wood and rusty iron; and in the middle
rises the image of Christ crucified.
Before this image, on the right, was the deep grave, at the exact spot
where, years ago, they had buried our mother's two children who had
died. A mound of freshly-dug earth lay on either side of the grave.
Here the bearers let the coffin down to the ground and stripped it of
all its finery; and it slid down into the pit as poor as it had left
the cottage in the wood.
"Thou to-day, I to-morrow; and so I am content," murmured father.
And the priest said:
"May she rest in the Lord!"
Then they cast clods of earth into the grave and went away, went to the
inn, tasted bread and wine and talked of everyday things. When it was
twelve o'clock and, according to custom, the bells began to toll once
more, as a last farewell to the departed, the men and women of the
forest set out to return to their mountain valley.
We who belonged to one another sat together for a while longer and
spoke sadly of the time that must now come and how to arrange for it.
Then we took leave of one another: my father and brothers and sisters
went home to the cottage in the wood, to live and die where mother had
lived and died.