A little later he felt his knees resting on a soft cushion and the hand of the vicar on his head. What he said to him he did not hear. He saw Elsbeth on the other side, crying quietly with her handkerchief to her eyes, and thought,
“Ah, cry away, cry away, you will soon laugh again.”
And then he asked himself why people always laughed so much, while on the whole there were so few laughable things in the world.
The organ now intoned the hymn, “Praise ye the Lord, the mighty King of Glory.” The chorus of the congregation sounded jubilant, and his gaze wandered up to the sunbeams which fell in iridescent light through the painted church windows like a rainbow.
And while he was gazing at it he suddenly started. Just opposite the cross which crowned the altar stood a dark woman clad in gray, of supernatural stature, looking down upon him with big, hollow eyes. It was the penitent Magdalene.
He felt a cold shudder run through his frame.
“Dame Care,” he murmured, and bent his head as if he wished to accept with humility what she might grant him for life.
And when he lifted his eyes again the sun shone more magnificently than before.
Fiery red and emerald green sparkled the rays, weaving a radiant halo round the gray dame’s head.
But she stood there sadly in the midst of all the brilliant radiance, and stared down upon him with her big, hollow eyes.