His dark eye stared lifelessly out of his pale countenance. Thus sit the dead upon their graves in the silent night; thus gazes the somnambulist upon the living world around him.
“I have felt this moment before—this moment which now is here; it was the well-spring whence poison was poured over my youthful days! She is my sister! She? unhappy one that I am!”
Tears streamed from his eyes, it was a convulsive weeping; he cried aloud, it was impossible to him to suppress his voice; he sank half down by the tree and wept, for it was night in his soul: silent, bitter tears flowed, as the blood flows when the heart is transpierced. Who could breathe to him consolation? There lay no balsam in the gentle airs of the clear summer night, in the fragrance of the wood, in the holy, silent spirit of nature. Poor Otto!
“Weep, only weep! it gives repose,
A world is every tear that flows,—
A world of anguish and unrest,
That rolleth from the troubled breast.
“And hast thou wept whilst tears can flow,
A tranquil peace thy heart will know;
For sorrow, trivial or severe,
Hath had its seat in every tear.
“Think’st thou that He, whose love beholds
The worm the smallest leaf enfolds,—
That He, whose power sustains the whole
Forgets a world—thy human soul?”
CHAPTER XXXVII
“Mourir! c’est un instant de supplice: mais vivre?”
—FRÉDÉRIC SOULIE.
The physician from Nyborg, who had been on a visit to a sick person in the neighborhood, took this opportunity of calling on the family and inquiring after Eva’s health. They had prayed him to stay over the night there, and rather to drive hone in the early morning than so late in the evening. He allowed himself to be persuaded. Otto, on his return, found him and the family in deep conversation. They were talking of the “Letters of a Wandering Ghost.”
“Where have you been?” asked Sophie, as Otto entered.
“You look so pale!” said Louise; “are you ill?”