When I was five years old I had such a great sorrow! I hardly know if I
have had a greater since.
It was then my grandmother died. Up to that time, she used to sit every
day on the corner sofa in her room, and tell stories.
I remember that grandmother told story after story from morning till
night, and that we children sat beside her, quite still, and listened.
It was a glorious life! No other children had such happy times as we
did.
It isn’t much that I recollect about my grandmother. I remember that she
had very beautiful snow-white hair, and stooped when she walked, and
that she always sat and knitted a stocking.
And I even remember that when she had finished a story, she used to lay
her hand on my head and say: “All this is as true, as true as that I see
you and you see me.”
I also remember that she could sing songs, but this she did not do every
day. One of the songs was about a knight and a sea-troll, and had this
refrain: “It blows cold, cold weather at sea.”
Then I remember a little prayer she taught me, and a verse of a hymn.
Of all the stories she told me, I have but a dim and imperfect
recollection. Only one of them do I remember so well that I should be
able to repeat it. It is a little story about Jesus’ birth.
Well, this is nearly all that I can recall about my grandmother, except
the thing which I remember best; and that is, the great loneliness when
she was gone.
I remember the morning when the corner sofa stood empty and when it was
impossible to understand how the days would ever come to an end. That I
remember. That I shall never forget!
And I recollect that we children were brought forward to kiss the hand
of the dead and that we were afraid to do it. But then some one said to
us that it would be the last time we could thank grandmother for all the
pleasure she had given us.
And I remember how the stories and songs were driven from the homestead,
shut up in a long black casket, and how they never came back again.
I remember that something was gone from our lives. It seemed as if the
door to a whole beautiful, enchanted world—where before we had been
free to go in and out—had been closed. And now there was no one who
knew how to open that door.
And I remember that, little by little, we children learned to play with
dolls and toys, and to live like other children. And then it seemed as
though we no longer missed our grandmother, or remembered her.
But even to-day—after forty years—as I sit here and gather together
the legends about Christ, which I heard out there in the Orient, there
awakes within me the little legend of Jesus’ birth that my grandmother
used to tell, and I feel impelled to tell it once again, and to let it
also be included in my collection.
It was a Christmas Day and all the folks had driven to church except
grandmother and I. I believe we were all alone in the house. We had not
been permitted to go along, because one of us was too old and the other
was too young. And we were sad, both of us, because we had not been
taken to early mass to hear the singing and to see the Christmas
candles.
But as we sat there in our loneliness, grandmother began to tell a
story.
“There was a man,” said she, “who went out in the dark night to borrow
live coals to kindle a fire. He went from hut to hut and knocked. ‘Dear
friends, help me!’ said he. ‘My wife has just given birth to a child,
and I must make a fire to warm her and the little one.’
“But it was way in the night, and all the people were asleep. No one
replied.
“The man walked and walked. At last he saw the gleam of a fire a long
way off. Then he went in that direction, and saw that the fire was
burning in the open. A lot of sheep were sleeping around the fire, and
an old shepherd sat and watched over the flock.
“When the man who wanted to borrow fire came up to the sheep, he saw
that three big dogs lay asleep at the shepherd’s feet. All three awoke
when the man approached and opened their great jaws, as though they
wanted to bark; but not a sound was heard. The man noticed that the hair
on their backs stood up and that their sharp, white teeth glistened in
the firelight. They dashed toward him. He felt that one of them bit at
his leg and one at his hand and that one clung to his throat. But their
jaws and teeth wouldn’t obey them, and the man didn’t suffer the least
harm.
“Now the man wished to go farther, to get what he needed. But the sheep
lay back to back and so close to one another that he couldn’t pass them.
Then the man stepped upon their backs and walked over them and up to the
fire. And not one of the animals awoke or moved.”
Thus far, grandmother had been allowed to narrate without interruption.
But at this point I couldn’t help breaking in. “Why didn’t they do it,
grandma?” I asked.
“That you shall hear in a moment,” said grandmother—and went on with
her story.
“When the man had almost reached the fire, the shepherd looked up. He
was a surly old man, who was unfriendly and harsh toward human beings.
And when he saw the strange man coming, he seized the long spiked staff,
which he always held in his hand when he tended his flock, and threw it
at him. The staff came right toward the man, but, before it reached him,
it turned off to one side and whizzed past him, far out in the meadow.”
When grandmother had got this far, I interrupted her again. “Grandma,
why wouldn’t the stick hurt the man?” Grandmother did not bother about
answering me, but continued her story.
“Now the man came up to the shepherd and said to him: ‘Good man, help
me, and lend me a little fire! My wife has just given birth to a child,
and I must make a fire to warm her and the little one.’
“The shepherd would rather have said no, but when he pondered that the
dogs couldn’t hurt the man, and the sheep had not run from him, and that
the staff had not wished to strike him, he was a little afraid, and
dared not deny the man that which he asked.
“‘Take as much as you need!’ he said to the man.
“But then the fire was nearly burnt out. There were no logs or branches
left, only a big heap of live coals; and the stranger had neither spade
nor shovel, wherein he could carry the red-hot coals.
“When the shepherd saw this, he said again: ‘Take as much as you need!’
And he was glad that the man wouldn’t be able to take away any coals.
“But the man stooped and picked coals from the ashes with his bare
hands, and laid them in his mantle. And he didn’t burn his hands when he
touched them, nor did the coals scorch his mantle; but he carried them
away as if they had been nuts or apples.”
But here the story-teller was interrupted for the third time. “Grandma,
why wouldn’t the coals burn the man?”
“That you shall hear,” said grandmother, and went on:
“And when the shepherd, who was such a cruel and hard-hearted man, saw
all this, he began to wonder to himself: ‘What kind of a night is this,
when the dogs do not bite, the sheep are not scared, the staff does not
kill, or the fire scorch?’ He called the stranger back, and said to him:
‘What kind of a night is this? And how does it happen that all things
show you compassion?’
“Then said the man: ‘I cannot tell you if you yourself do not see it.’
And he wished to go his way, that he might soon make a fire and warm his
wife and child.
“But the shepherd did not wish to lose sight of the man before he had
found out what all this might portend. He got up and followed the man
till they came to the place where he lived.
“Then the shepherd saw that the man didn’t have so much as a hut to
dwell in, but that his wife and babe were lying in a mountain grotto,
where there was nothing except the cold and naked stone walls.
“But the shepherd thought that perhaps the poor innocent child might
freeze to death there in the grotto; and, although he was a hard man, he
was touched, and thought he would like to help it. And he loosened his
knapsack from his shoulder, took from it a soft white sheepskin, gave it
to the strange man, and said that he should let the child sleep on it.
“But just as soon as he showed that he, too, could be merciful, his eyes
were opened, and he saw what he had not been able to see before and
heard what he could not have heard before.
“He saw that all around him stood a ring of little silver-winged angels,
and each held a stringed instrument, and all sang in loud tones that
to-night the Saviour was born who should redeem the world from its sins.
“Then he understood how all things were so happy this night that they
didn’t want to do anything wrong.
“And it was not only around the shepherd that there were angels, but he
saw them everywhere. They sat inside the grotto, they sat outside on the
mountain, and they flew under the heavens. They came marching in great
companies, and, as they passed, they paused and cast a glance at the
child.
“There were such jubilation and such gladness and songs and play! And
all this he saw in the dark night, whereas before he could not have made
out anything. He was so happy because his eyes had been opened that he
fell upon his knees and thanked God.”
Here grandmother sighed and said: “What that shepherd saw we might also
see, for the angels fly down from heaven every Christmas Eve, if we
could only see them.”
Then grandmother laid her hand on my head, and said: “You must remember
this, for it is as true, as true as that I see you and you see me. It is
not revealed by the light of lamps or candles, and it does not depend
upon sun and moon; but that which is needful is, that we have such eyes
as can see God’s glory.”
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[Illustration: The Emperor’s Vision]