“It would be frightful,” she said, “if one could thus by degrees vanish from the mind, so that we could remember nothing rightly about them.” To Amrie it was dreadful thus perpetually to hear of one that was dead as though he yet lived. Again, Mariann complained, “It is sinful that I can no longer weep for my John. I once heard that we could weep for one that was lost as long as he lived, or till he is buried. When he is beneath the ground, all weeping ceases.”
“No, that cannot be! That dare not be! My John cannot be dead! Thou darest not do that to me, Thou, there above! But no! Forgive me, good God, that I so strive against the wall! But open thou the door; open it and let my John come in! Oh, the joy!—Come, sit thou there, John! Tell me nothing! I will hear nothing! I will only know that thou art there. It is good! It is enough! The long, long years have now become a minute. What has happened to me? Where hast thou wandered? Where thou hast been I have not been—but now thou art here, and thou shalt never again leave this hand till it is cold. Oh, Amrie, my John must wait till thou art grown. I say no more. Why dost thou not speak?”
Amrie felt as though deprived of breath, her throat was dry. It seemed to her as though the dead stood there—a spectre. The secret was upon her lips. She might betray it, and the roof fall in and all be buried.
Sometimes Mariann was talkative in another manner, although all related to the one subject, the remembrance of her son. Heavily came upon Amrie the dark questions of the order of Providence.
“Why does a child die for which the mother has waited, trembling—with her whole soul has waited? I and my Dami, why are we lost children? We might so gladly seize the hand of our mother, and that hand has become dust.”
These were dark and misty questions into which the thoughts of the poor solitary child were driven. She knew no other way to help herself out of the labyrinth of doubt, than to softly repeat the Multiplication Table.
On Saturday evening Mariann was willing to talk. From an ancient superstition she would not spin on Saturday evening. She always knit, and if she had any thing to relate, she wound off at first a good deal of her yarn, so as not to be interrupted, and then she went on with the thread of her story.
“Oh, child,” she always concluded, “remember this, in thee is concealed the soul of an old hermit; whoever would live a good, exact life, that person must live alone. Willingly receive of no one. Knowest thou who is rich? He who needs nothing but that which he has! And who is poor? He who wants to receive something from friends. There sits one and waits for the hands that belong to another’s body, and waits for the eyes that are in another person’s head. Remain alone by thyself; then thou hast thy own hands; thou needest no other, and canst help thyself. Hope for any thing to come to thee from another, and thou art a beggar. Only to expect any thing from fortune, from a fellow-creature, yes, even from God himself, and thou art a beggar. Thou standest with outstretched hands for something to fall therein. Remain alone! that is best—then thou hast all in thyself. Alone! Oh, how good it is to be alone! Look, in the depths of the ant-hill lies a little tiny sparkling stone; whoever finds it can make himself invisible, and no one can know his appearance. But he who seeks it, must creep beneath others. There is also a secret in this world. But who can understand it? Find it. Take it to thyself. It gives thee neither fortune nor misfortune. If a man knows himself and other men aright, he can make himself any thing he pleases, but only on one condition,—he must remain alone! Alone,—alone! Otherwise, nothing will help him!”
Thus she gave Amrie dark and half-expressed meanings, which the child could not understand,—but who knows how much remains forever engraved in an attentive open soul, through words half understood? Then, often looking wildly around, she would say, “Oh, could I only be alone. But one piece of me is under the ground, and another is wandering around in the world, who knows where? Oh that I were that black goat!”
However gently she began, the conclusion of her remarks led always to regret and melancholy; and she who would be always alone, and think of and love no one, lived only by thinking of her son, and loving him passionately.