In silence they listened to these evil tidings, in silence they remained sitting, when the Syndic had ceased to speak, all equally overwhelmed by the heavy fate that was hurrying upon them. Their eyes only, which were fixed on the burgomaster, expressed the reproaches they intended him. In the meantime the secretary had drawn from his portfolio the imperial decree, and taking it from its double envelope, now laid it with a condoling gesture on the table before Erasmus, who first glanced hastily below at the Emperor's seal and subscription, and then attempted to read. But he could not accomplish it; he still gazed on the first side, and soon his eyes stared vacantly from the paper on the air. The Vice-Consul was on the point of wakening him from this lethargy of the spirit, when the city-marshal rushed into the room with a face of horror. And now Erasmus started up from his stupefaction.--"Another Job's post," he exclaimed; "I read it in your countenance: but speak it out; we have already heard the worst; what is still to come cannot much affect us."
"Would to heaven it were so!" replied the bailiff. "My tidings concern you in particular, Mr. Burgomaster. Your son Christopher has been found dead in his night-clothes, in the well of his garden."
A cry of horror burst from the lips of all present, and the old Erasmus clasped his long thin hands.--"My last!" he exclaimed piteously--then suddenly, in a louder voice, he added, "Thou art just, O God!" and his head, with its silver locks, fell back, so that it hung over the elbow of his chair.
The council crowded about him in terror. The vice-consul looked at the old man's broken eyes, felt his pulse, and cried with deep emotion, "He is dead!"
"He who does not walk in fear, does not please God!" cried Caspar, in his dark fanaticism, with the words of Sirach.
"De mortuis nil nisi bene, collega," admonished the vice-consul. "The deceased, with all his failings, was yet a MAN, in the full sense of the word, and therefore always estimable. If he has erred, he has severely suffered. Peace be with his ashes!"
He went to the head of the corse, and folded his hands in prayer. The others stood around and did the same; and from every lip trembled a low and devout supplication for the dead.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1]: The title of Prince Palatine is far from being a correct translation of the original, for which, indeed, we have no corresponding phrase, the political organization of this country supplying no corresponding authority. In such a dilemma nothing is left to a translator but to choose between two evils; either to retain the original term, or to adopt from his own language any word that may convey something of a similar idea. Perhaps I have been wrong in my choice.--Certamen est de paupere regno.
[Footnote 2]: This German dance is the Waltz, though it certainly has no claim to the title, being neither more nor less than the English Lavolta, so constantly referred to by the old dramatists. But our German neighbours are remarkable for the organ of appropriation, and not less so for the organ of impudence. The one leads them to steal, and the other to deny or abuse articles stolen. There is a very pretty instance of this in Kotzebue, who cut down the comedy of the Jealous Wife into a farce, and protested that the other three acts were good for nothing.