An hour later they were in Borsche’s farm yard. The stable door was
open. The men servants and the maid servants stood in front of it. An
old man held a lantern high up, and they all stared into the shed. In
the dim and wavering light, their faces showed a mixture of reverence
and amazement. Within, on a pallet of straw, lay the body of Walpurga.
Its cheeks were rosy. Nothing in that countenance recalled death, but
only a peaceful sleep.
On the wooden bench a single candle was burning; but it was near
extinction.
Amadeus Voss passed through that group of men and women, and kneeled
at the dead woman’s feet. The old man who held the lantern whispered
something, and all the men and women kneeled down and folded their
hands.
A cow lowed. After that there was no sound save from the bells of the
unquiet cattle. The darkness of the stable, the face of the dead woman,
which was like a face in a painting, the faces of the kneeling people,
with their blunted foreheads and hard lips, in the yellow glimmer of
the light--all these things Christian beheld, and something melted in
his breast.
He himself watched it all from the darkness of the yard behind.
When Amadeus Voss joined Christian, the village carpenter came to
measure the dead woman for her coffin. They started on their homeward
way in silence.
Suddenly Christian stopped. It was near a tall mile-post. He grasped
the post with both hands, and bent his head far back, and gazed with
the utmost intensity into the drifting clouds of the night. Then he
heard Amadeus Voss say: “Is it possible? Can such things be?”
Christian turned to him.
“I have a strange feeling in your presence, Christian Wahnschaffe,”
Voss said in a repressed and toneless voice. And then he murmured to
himself: “Is it possible? Can the monstrous and incredible come to
pass?”
Christian did not answer, and they wandered on.