What the Swallow Sang.

by Friedrich Spielhagen.

CHAPTER I.

"I won't give you any farther trouble, I can find what I want myself."

The s.e.xton's wife looked at the gentleman in some little surprise, and then glanced at the bunch of huge keys which hung in the door she had just opened for the stranger.

"That's right; you need not be uneasy, I shall not stay long, and here is something for your trouble."

He pressed a piece of money into her hand, and turned towards the door.

"The Herr Pastor has strictly forbidden it," said the woman.

"He will have no objection," replied the stranger. "I will leave a few words for him."

He took his note-book and wrote a few lines. When he tore out the leaf he perceived on the other side a little sketch which he had dashed off that afternoon with a few hasty strokes, while his carriage stopped before a village inn.

A smile flitted over his grave features.

"That won't do," he murmured. "And here again, everything is filled with scrawls. Well," he added aloud, as he thrust the note-book back into his pocket, "I will write from P----. Please tell him so; farewell, my good woman."

The s.e.xton's wife did not venture to make any reply, and turned away.

The stranger looked after her retreating figure a few minutes.

"Strange," he murmured, "it seems as if it would be committing a sacrilege to utter my name aloud in this place! It was really a relief to my mind that the woman did not know me. How we are all under the ban of gloomy feelings which we should be ashamed to confess to others! To be sure it is not strange that these emotions should almost overpower me here; here, in this spot which should be my home, where my cradle stood, and yet where I was not allowed to return until the grave had closed over him to whom I owe my life."

He had taken a few noiseless steps within the church, and now pausing, gazed around the narrow s.p.a.ce. The sun, already low in the horizon, cast through the round, leaden-cased panes of the lofty narrow windows a mysterious light, which brightened or faded as the soft breeze raised or lowered the branches of the ancient linden-trees outside the walls.

And thus, now clear now dim, but always sorrowful, the memories of his early years swept through the stranger's mind as he stood motionless, his eyes wandering over the ma.s.sive white-washed walls, the few dusky pictures hung here and there at far too great a height, the little oaken font black with age, the altar with its two large bra.s.s sconces, and the pulpit, whose desk was covered with a tattered cloth.

Everything was just as it used to be; he even remembered the holes in the cover, only it was all very much smaller, more poverty-stricken and tasteless than memory had pictured it. Yet this was the most favorable light,--what must it be in the broad glare of day! And his gloomy, sorrowful childhood,--what was it when he extinguished the magical light of memory, when he saw it as it really was, as a cold fanatical father had made it to the child so early bereft of a mother's love.

The traveller started from his revery as a sharp sound suddenly echoed through the quiet church as if something had burst asunder. It was the clock, which had just begun to strike. He pa.s.sed his hand over his brow, mechanically counted the strokes and listened to the rumbling echo till the last sound died away. "Seven o' clock," said he; "it is time for me to set out again."

He walked around behind the benches, up a side aisle, on the right of the pulpit, until he reached the large iron door of the crypt. It was fastened, but on both sides, affixed to the wall, were the mural tablets of the pastors of Rammin, who had preached the gospel over the coffins of their predecessors whom they were some day to join. He went to the last stone and read the inscription, that here rested in G.o.d, Gotthold Ephraim Weber, D.D., installed in 1805 as Pastor of St. Mary's church in Rammin, born August 3d, 1780, died June 15th, 1833.

"Gotthold Ephraim Weber," murmured the stranger, "that is my name too, and I am also a Doctor of Theology. That I would not remain where my father placed me, but insisted upon taking the profession for which, according to my best knowledge and belief, I was born, separated him who now lies here from me forever. No, no, not that, at least that was not the true cause! I never understood in your sense what is written here: 'Blessed are those who die in the Lord.' We were never one, had been separated long before we parted. Well, father, at least let there be peace between us now. I wish with all my heart that you may have the bliss in which you believed; and say: 'blessed are the--dead,' so you certainly have the happiness in which I believe."

Gotthold made a gesture like one who holds out his hand in reconciliation. "Let us have peace now," he repeated.

A little bird, which had perched for a moment in one of the openings above the window, twittered so loudly that the sweet clear tones filled the silent empty church.

"I will take it as an answer," said Gotthold.

He left the building as slowly as he had entered it, and went down the broad path in the churchyard to a spot where, at a large iron cross, which also bore the inscription, "Blessed are those who die in the Lord," a narrow walk branched off towards the wall. Scarcely anything had been altered in this older portion of the cemetery; he still remembered every mound, every cross, every stone, and every epitaph; there at last was what he was seeking--the grave with the low wooden railing, the stunted weeping willow, the little slanting cross, neglected as ever, or perhaps even more so--his mother's grave.

He had lost her so very young, when he was only four or five years old, that he had scarcely the faintest shadow of personal remembrance; he had never seen a picture of her, and his father only mentioned her name when he said angrily: "You are just like your mother," yet perhaps for this very reason his fancy had always busied itself very frequently with this dead mother, who had been like him, and would certainly have loved him as he loved her dear shadow, until it almost a.s.sumed a bodily form. A dear, dream-like form, which came unbidden, and disappeared when he would so gladly have detained it longer.

He plucked a few leaves from the willow, but scattered them over the grave again.

"We need no mementos," he said; "we understand each other without any outward tokens, and it shall remain as it is, decay silently and gradually, as time wills. Who would be benefited by the most superb monument I could order from Thorwaldsen's master hand? Not you--what do the shades in Nirwana care for such earthly vanities--and not I. I shall never stand upon this spot again, and to others the stone would be only a stone. No, it is better so; it is in harmony with the place."

He looked up, and his artist's eye wandered over the graves, upon whose long gra.s.s, swaying in the soft breeze, the setting sun scattered rosy hues, to the ancient church, whose rude square tower still glowed in the purple light, while the main building was already in deep shadow.

"This scene and hour would make a beautiful picture," said Gotthold, "but I shall not paint it. That would efface it from my mind, and I wish to hold it fast there forever."

He closed his eyes a moment, and when he opened them did not look around again as he walked slowly, with his hands behind his back, through the narrow path to the gate. Suddenly he paused and involuntarily extended his hand towards two little graves close beside the path, whose inscriptions had caught his eye in pa.s.sing. "Cecilia Brandow," "Caroline Brandow." The date of the birth and death of the children was also added in tiny characters, as small as the mounds themselves.

A strange emotion thrilled his frame. He had thought this was over, utterly effaced from his life, and that he could take the journey to the bedside of his dying father, which had become a pilgrimage to his parents' graves, without being disturbed by the vicinity of his early love. Nay, just now when he came out of the church door, he had gazed from this lofty stand-point over the wide landscape to the park of Dahlitz, through whose dusky trees gleamed the white gables of the mansion, and the past had remained mute. Now it flooded his soul like a torrent which has suddenly burst its bounds. Her children--and she herself was then scarcely more than a child! Her children. One, the eldest, had borne her name--the name which ever since those days had always had a peculiar, sacred a.s.sociation, so that he could never hear or read it without a strange thrill. Cecilia! Her children! Strange!

Incomprehensibly strange! Incomprehensible as the death to which they had so soon fallen victims! She had wept and knelt at these graves with her husband beside her, the husband whose name was also inscribed in gilt letters upon these tablets, and who a.s.serted his paternal rights in the Christian name of the younger: "Carl Brandow"! Did he too shed tears for his children? It was impossible to think of Carl Brandow's sharp, hard features wet with tears.

How the face of Gotthold's enemy--the only one he had ever had--rose in almost tangible outlines before his mind, while a sharp pang ran through the deep scar which, beginning under his hair, pa.s.sed over the right temple, across the cheek, and even divided the heavy beard, the scar on whose account the s.e.xton's wife, mindful of the words that marked people should be avoided, had been so unwilling to leave the stately stranger alone in the church. Was the wound going to bleed again--the wound that man's hand had dealt when both were schoolboys?

Would it have been any miracle at that moment, when his heart was throbbing so violently, as if to say: The wound I have been struck is newer by some years, and much fresher and deeper, yet you see it is not healed as you supposed, and never will be!

"Never," said Gotthold, "never! Well, at least I will not touch it.

And--the innocent children are not to blame, if there is blame anywhere. I wish. I could call them back to life for you, poor Cecilia, and may Heaven preserve those who I trust have been given you in their place!"

A figure clad in black, with a low broad-brimmed hat and white neck-tie, approached the churchyard from the parsonage. It was doubtless his father's successor, the new Pastor, who had returned from examining the school earlier than the s.e.xton's wife expected, and come in search of the stranger who had inquired for him, and then ordered the church to be unlocked. In his present excited frame of mind Gotthold would gladly have avoided this meeting; but the reverend gentleman appeared to have seen him already, for he quickened his steps, and, as Gotthold now approached him, held out both hands, exclaiming: "Must we meet again under such sorrowful circ.u.mstances?"

Gotthold cast a puzzled glance at the beardless, plump white face of the man who now stood before him, clasping and pressing his hands; his watery blue eyes winking perpetually, either from emotion or because the setting sun was shining into them.

"Don't you know me, my dear brother?" asked the reverend gentleman; "didn't they tell you my name? August Semmel--"

"Surnamed Kloss,"[1] said Gotthold with an involuntary laugh. "I beg your pardon, I really had not heard your name, and then I have never seen you lately except in uniform, with a military cap on one side of your head, and your face covered with a beard; it is really an excellent mask."

Pastor Semmel dropped Gotthold's hands and hastily turned away, so that he placed himself in shadow.

"A mask," he said, rolling up his eyes piously; "yes indeed! and, as I now think, a very vain, not to say sinful one. I often scolded you then because you would not enter our corps, although you sometimes did not disdain to go to an ale--to amuse yourself with us, I mean; now I envy you for having had the power of self-renunciation I lacked."

"So Saul has now become Paul," replied Gotthold smiling, "while my journey to Damascus is still delayed."

"Yes, yes," said the Pastor. "Who would have thought it! The most industrious of us all at school, the most indefatigable at the university; always held up as a pattern by teachers and professors; when in the fourth session already cram--preparing us older ones for the examination, pa.s.sing your own with great distinction, and all this--"

"For Hecuba! No, dear Semmel, you must not revile my art, although I freely admit I am but a poor artist as yet. But I can a.s.sure you of one thing: it is easier to pa.s.s a creditable examination in theology than to paint a good picture. I speak from experience; besides if I had remained a theological student, who knows whether the son might not have stepped into his father's place instead of you? That is to be considered too."

"There would have been a terrible compet.i.tion," said Herr Semmel, "although on the other hand a prophet has little honor in his own country; and to be frank, when I was a candidate here--after I left Halle I spent four years in Lower Pomerania as a tutor in Count Zerneckow's family, and afterwards came to Neuenkirchen to relieve the old man, who had grown very garrulous, so that I thought I was positively settled--but he has entirely recovered his powers again, and so it happened very opportunely--what was I going to say? yes--when I applied for this place a month ago, and thought it would be an advantage to present myself as an intimate school and university friend of my predecessor's son, I found the recommendation was not satisfactory everywhere. Herr Otto von Pluggen of Pluggenhof--"

Gotthold could not help laughing. "I suppose so," said he, "I have often punched his stupid head when he went to school in P."

"You know I was in the first cla.s.s, while you were still in the second," continued the Pastor in an apologetic tone, "and had entirely forgotten that you must have known each other; but when, warned by my experience with von Pluggen, I mentioned you more cautiously to several others, I found a certain, what shall I term it? hostility would be unchristian, but--"

"Let us drop the subject," said Gotthold somewhat impatiently.

"Certainly, certainly," replied the Pastor, "although you will be glad to hear that I took advantage of this very opportunity to speak of your generous gift to the poor of our parish, which--"

"But why did you do that when I particularly requested that my name should not be mentioned?"

"Because it is written: 'Thou shalt not hide thy light under a bushel;'