Surely from the village sounds the stork's rattle … and surely the distant strains of an accordion are heard….
But the nightingale up there cares little what other music may be made. It sobs and jubilates louder and louder, as if it knew that in the poor dead man's bosom down here the heart beats once more stormily against his side.
And at every throb of that heart a hot stream glides through my veins. It penetrates farther and farther until it will have filled my whole body. It seems to me as though I must cry out with yearning and remorse. But my dull stubbornness arises once more: "You have what you desired. So lie here and be still, even though you should be condemned to hear the nightingale's song until the end of the world."
The song has grown much softer.
Obviously the human steps that now encircle my grave with their sullen resonance have driven the bird to a more distant bush.
"Who may it be," I ask myself, "that thinks of wandering to my place of rest on an evening of May when the nightingales are singing."
And I listen anew. It sounds almost as though some one up there were weeping.
Did I not go my earthly road lonely and unloved? Did I not die in the house of a stranger? Was I not huddled away in the earth by strangers? Who is it that comes to weep at my grave?
And each one of the tears that is shed above there falls glowing upon my breast….
And my breast rises in a convulsive struggle but the coffin lid pushes it back. I strain my head against the wood to burst it, but it lies upon me like a mountain. My body seems to burn. To protect it I burrow in the saw-dust which fills mouth and eyes with its biting chaff.