A DIVINE VISITATION.
The whole region was pitch black, half the night was over, there was no
sign of life anywhere.
But slumber was no dweller in _that_ darkness, the terrible voice of God
drove it far away from the eyes of men--Heaven was thundering as if it
would have smashed this nebulous star of ours here below into fragments.
Who could sleep at such a time?
One thunderbolt followed hard upon another. Whenever the crashing uproar
ceased for an instant one could hear the ringing of bells, which the
superstitious peasantry set a-going to charm away the terrifying
tempest.
At such times every soul of man prays silently in its quiet place of
rest. Not a single light is burning in any of the windows, the awakened
sleeper lies with fast-closed eyes beneath his coverlet, all his sins
rise up before him, all his sins and their punishment--death!
In one house, and one house only, nobody has gone to rest. Every living
thing there is wakeful, from the master of the house to the watch-dog.
It is the squire's house. All its windows are lit up and all its doors
are locked.
In the room looking out upon the garden, the mother is alone with the
sick child.
The child is delirious, he is gabbling terrible things, his features
wear a different expression every instant.
And his mother understands every word of that mortal fever-born
nightmare; she guesses at every thought which underlies all those
varying expressions of countenance, the sight of whose horrible
contortions are enough to make even the heart of a strong man break
down.
How she must suffer!
He who takes poison dies a terrible death, his veins burst asunder one
by one; his nerves and muscles strain and crack, his very marrow seems
to be on fire. But, oh! what is all that compared to the death of a
poisoned soul! A remedy may be found perhaps for bodily venom, but there
is no remedy against spiritual venom. The grave may close upon the
former, but never upon the latter. Both here and hereafter recollection
and reprobation wait upon it.
God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children even to the fourth
generation. They graft the evil qualities of their blood upon their
sons; one generation passes on its wickedness to the next; man is
vitiated when he is born; he sins as soon as he is conscious of his
existence and he dies accursed.
The sweat streamed from the child's temples; for the last three days he
has had the mark of death upon him.
The doctors say he may live, but if he lives he will be weak-witted.
What a future for a four-year-old child! A burden to the world, a burden
to himself, to live on for years after the mind is dead! To be an idiot
for ever! It would be good for him if he could be made away with,
surely.
Will God take him? Or is it the Divine Will that he should live on as an
example of a living curse, as a witness of the Almighty's chastising
arm?
Does he bear so much suffering by way of ransom for the sins of his
father, his mother, and his grandfather?--or must the years of
punishment be as many as the years of sin?
Who will be merciful enough to put an end to his sufferings?
His mother sits silent and watchful at the head of the bed.
No, she cannot do it!
After all she is his mother. The roots of that young flower are still
but half detached from the soil of her heart. Death would be a benefit
to him. Perchance it might be easier to forget him if he were under the
sod. But man who does not endow with life, must not distribute death.
Man must wait till the last of his allotted days has come.
And yet only a few words would bring it to pass.
The "death-bird" has whispered the magic spell, and Death will obey the
summons.
Yet she lacks the courage to summon him at a time when the very
foundations of the earth are trembling at the voice of Heaven's thunder!
Poor woman!
It is a marvel that she also is not mad. She cannot even weep now though
her bosom heaves tumultuously--it were not good for a man to know her
secret thoughts at this moment.
"They are calling me, they are calling me," stammers the child.... "Men
without heads ... they are running after me ... the black dog is
scratching up the ground ... the hand of the dead body is sticking
out.... Poor Emma!"
The poor lady, all trembling, rose from her seat, very softly lest she
should make a noise, she gets up, she cannot blow out the night lamp on
the table, her breath is too feeble for that, she puts it out by casting
it out of the room.
Then she approaches the window in the darkness to see whether the
curtains are closely drawn, or whether anyone can look into the room
from the outside. What a flashing past there was of fiery eyes amid the
darkness of the night--Hah! What a blinding flash that was!--And then
black darkness again.--No, nobody could see her--nobody--.
Can she make up her mind?
She goes slowly back to the bed. The lad is moaning fearfully. He is
babbling dreadful words and his throat rattles painfully. "How blue...?
her mouth ... how bloody ... her forehead ... poor little Emma."
The lady bends down over the bed. The ghost of a pale little face comes
into sight now and then as the lightning flashes quiver past the
windows.
Can she make up her mind?
"Poor little Emma," wails the lad.
This last pathetic wail was too much for her. The unhappy woman crossed
herself three times and, in a dry, half-suffocated voice exclaimed:
"Don't bury me, Neddy, little Emma won't cry!"
The lad uttered a cry like the scream of a wild bird when it is shot
through the heart--then he drew a long deep sigh and was quite still.
"Oh!" cried the desperate mother, as if suddenly throwing off the
oppressive influence of some magic trance, "help, help!" and like a mad
creature she rushed towards the bell-rope which hung beside the hearth.
She seized the golden tassel, the bell rang out like a ghostly chime,
when suddenly a fearful crash was heard, a thunderbolt came down the
chimney, zig-zagging through the room like a fiery serpent, fusing the
metal of the bell in its passage and flashing down the bell-rope to the
golden tassel with a blinding glare, finally vanishing with a dull
crackling sound.
The whole family rushed at once to the scene of this fearful crash.
With ghastly, frightened faces they came rushing in one by one, huddled
up in sheets and counterpanes or whatever else came first to hand, like
so many spectres in white mourning.
In the room lay two corpses, the mother and the child.
Bitter lamentations resounded through the house.
The father and the grandfather came hurrying along.
Howling and screaming like some wild beast never seen before, the father
flung himself upon his dead, turning frantically from the mother to the
child, and from the child to the mother, kissing and squeezing them
constantly. And then he pressed them to his bosom and literally howled
like one beyond the reach of the mercy of God.
But the grandfather groped his way along in silence, looking in his
white nightdress and his dishevelled silvery locks like some spectral
thing.
He could not speak. His palsied tongue could not utter a single cry for
the relief of his agony. He knelt down in front of the dead bodies and
raised his eyes aloft. Oh! how he strove to give expression to his
grief, to utter one word, if only one, which might pierce Heaven itself.
But he could not. He was dumb, his mouth moved as if it would speak, but
his tongue was tied.
Oh! how much this family must have sinned, to suffer so much.