The girl’s arm lay beneath that of the young man. The top of the open umbrella in the youth’s hand had been burned off.
The old woman was on the point of shrieking a curse, of adding her thunder to the fury of the storm’s thunder; her eyes flashed together with the lightning; in her heart there arose a devastating tempest.
She wished to cry out the most evil of words,—that the dead maiden had earned her end. She desired to send after her the most wretched and degrading of names.
Suddenly, however, all grew black before her. A flood of molten lead seemed to pour into her head. Weariness and trembling fell upon her. Her garments, saturated with the rain, seemed to drag her to the earth. Her eyes were extinguished.
The thunder and lightning and shrieking of the wind broke out anew.
But within the old woman all was quiet, dark, dead. She sank to her knees before the corpse of her daughter, stretched over the body her trembling arms, and a dull flame flickered up in her eyes.
Her entire being quivered. Her teeth knocked together. And with a hoarse, toneless voice she gasped:
“My darling daughter! Hennye, my darling!”
Printed in Great Britain by
UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WORING AND LONDON
For Myself Alone