And at the other end of the house she sits over her little mummy-coffin and speaks with her beloved dead, and weeps.
Lost for ever! For ever!
In the Attic.—Only three years had passed since his marriage, and now the storm had carried away all—his wife and child. He had occasion to go up to the attic to fetch something which had been put away there. So he came up to this room, where it always rustled and creaked, and cats slunk about, and the viscera of the house, so to speak, were visible in beams and chimney, where there were rust and soot and hanging cobwebs. He unfastened the padlock. There lay all the flotsam and jetsam after the wreck. It was too late to turn back, and he remained. There was the canopy of their marriage-bed, with green silk and gilt-brass ornaments. There was the cradle of the little one, and the six milk-bottles which the mother always used to wash with her small hands in the ice-cold water; all the flower-vases and glasses which came into the house on the wedding evening, when the table was laid in the hall.
There stood the basket once filled with roses, which she had received on her engagement, which had afterwards become a work-basket. There were withered bouquets, laurel-wreaths, and even books, presents from him at Christmas and on birthdays, with beautiful inscriptions....
But there were also prehistoric articles: pieces of furniture belonging to her girlhood which she had brought into the new home—a Japanese umbrella adorned with chrysanthemums and golden pheasants, a small carpet, a flower-stand....
But why did all these relics lie here in the dust and soot, and not downstairs with him who cherished those memories? Was it that he did not dare to see them every day, or did not wish to?
Then his eyes fell on a little toy cupboard, which lay in a paper-basket. There occurred to his mind the faint recollection of a moment like a Christmas evening, a child's eyes, little white milk teeth, the first musical-box which the little one played to the Christmas-tree, the rocking-horse, and her dolls Rosa and Brita.
He opened the toy cupboard; it contained no musical-box, but a phonograph, very small and simple, a toy which could only utter a single word! He did not remember which. The key lay close by; he wound it up and set it going. At first it hummed like a bee; it did not sting, however, but whispered the only word it could, "Darling!"
And in her voice! Yes, she had spoken it into the phonograph, though he had forgotten it.
"Darling!"