He looked around him and gazed into the blackness of night. All about him was gloom. A light breeze was blowing; it bore on its wings the scent of the blossoming heather and the resinous odour of pine-trees. And from the beds of the wasted garden arose another smell that mingled with the per fume of the breeze: the invigorating smell of the soil, of the mother-earth. It infused courage into the despairing heart of the lonely man, and elevated his drooping spirit.
The soil of their native land was the inexhaustible source from which the strength of the German people constantly renewed itself. Thanks to their love for the soil they could never utterly perish.
To this was owing the continual unconscious longing that drove the workmen out of the great cities on holidays, so that the green of woods and meadows was dotted with colour by the gay summer attire of women and children; a longing that made the lower classes crave to possess a few roods of land, if only to stand on their own soil and cultivate fruit whose flavour would be sweeter to them than any food that money could buy: the mighty living love for the soil of their native land.
And suddenly Reimers had a waking vision. He looked down upon the earth from some point of vantage. Germany lay beneath him as though viewed from the car of a balloon, with the familiar outlines pictured in the maps; yet he seemed to distinguish every roof in the cities and every tree in the woods. All parts of the country bore harvest; moors, marshes, heath-lands, had been converted into orchards, fruitful fields, or stately forests. But the extended boundaries of the large estates had vanished.
From the Baltic to the Vosges, from the marches of Schleswig to the Bavarian highlands, one peasant-farm neighboured another. The towns had grown no larger, for a new and happy race of men cultivated the soil: a lusty race, who flooded the cities with fresh vigour; a free race, loving its fatherland with a jubilant, willing, conscious love. And the sun shone down joyfully on this land of peace and plenty.
The pleasant picture vanished, and once more his eyes stared into the gloom.
From the distant camp came borne on the night wind the sound of the tattoo. He listened vaguely. Distance muffled the clear trumpet-call, and the final majestic roll of the drum was alike lost in the deep melancholy of the darkness. The tattoo. All must now go to rest. He thought of the beautiful pale woman whom he loved, who had given him one last moment of ecstatic joy in life before death claimed him.
Had she too gone to her rest?
The little weapon gave a faint report.
The screech-owl fluttered out of its cranny in the wall. With an apprehensive beat of its wings it sailed off over the deserted village and sent forth its piteous cry.