So this black storm cloud, charged to the brim with Sinai-lightnings, rolled on into the dim-lit chamber; the parson waved his great, flapping gown-sleeve, like a standard of spiritual healing and rehabilitation, over the atheist (as he thought him) stretched on his bed, and told him in a “sick-bed exhortation” (which is generally the very antipodes of a funeral sermon)—in a “sick-bed exhortation” (I say) such as may one day overtake me and my reader under our last bed-cover, and which I shall therefore avoid sending all the way from Bayreuth to Heidelberg to be put in type, since it may be heard en route going on in any sick-chamber. At the same time he told him, in the said sick-bed exhortation to his face, like a plain-speaking, straight-forward man, that he was a roast for the devil’s table, just done to a turn, and ready to be dished and served. The roast (thus pronounced to be done to a turn), closed his eyes, and endured it. But Henry, whom it pained to see the parson pinching the ears and the heart whom he loved with red-hot pincers, and who was furious at the thought that it was done solely to frighten the sick man into the Confessional—Henry seized his waving arm, and gently reminded him—
“I did not think it would have been very polite, Mr. Kevel, to mention it before—but the patient’s hearing is a good deal impaired. You will find you will be obliged to scream. He has not heard a syllable you have said up to this point. Mr. Siebenkæs, do you know who this is? You see how little he hears. Set to work now at converting me, over a glass of beer—I should prefer that very much, and I hear a great deal better. I’m very much afraid he has a touch of delirium, and, if he sees you at all, thinks you are the devil—for it is with him that the dying have to fence their last bout. It’s a pity he didn’t know what you were saying. He would have been very angry and annoyed—(for confess he will not)—and on the authority of Haller, in the 8th volume of his ‘Physiology, a proper amount of annoyance and vexation has often been known to add weeks to a dying person’s life. But, after all, he is a kind of a true Christian, after a fashion, when all’s said, although he no more dreams of confessing than any of the Apostles did, or the fathers either. When he is gone, you shall hear from my own lips how peacefully a true Christian passes away—no convulsions—no contortions—no agonies of death. He is as completely at home in the world of spirits as the screech-owl is in the village steeple—and just as the owl sits in the belfry while the bells are ringing, I will be bound that our Advocate will never stir when the death-bell tolls for him—for he has acquired, from your sermons, the conviction that he will go on living after he dies.”
In the above speech there was some pretty hard hitting, in the shape of jest, at Firmian’s mock death, as well as at his faith in immortality; such jests, in fact, as none but a Firmian could both understand and pardon. But Leibgeber was, at the same time, making an attack, in all seriousness, on those good people who believe accidental, physical tranquillity in dying to be tranquillity of soul, and bodily struggles to be storms of conscience.
Revel contented himself with replying, “You are of those who sit in the seat of the scorner—whom the Lord will find. I have washed my hands.” But as he would have infinitely preferred filling them, and, moreover, could not succeed in transforming this child of the devil into a confessing penitent, he took his departure, red and silent, escorted downstairs by Lenette and Stiefel with many deferential curtseys and bows.
Let us not make out Henry’s gall-bladder (which is likewise his swimming-bladder, and, alas! often his ascending globus hystericus) to be any bigger than it really is. Let us form a judgment, all the more favourable, of this natural foible of his from considering than Henry had, in the course of his previous career, seen spiritual frères terribles, and gallows preachers of this sort, strewing salt upon the faint, withered hearts on so many deathbeds; and because it was his belief (as it is mine) that of all the hours of a man’s life his last must be the most indifferent as regards religion, inasmuch as it the most unfruitful, and no seed can sprout in it which will bear any fruit of action.
During the brief absence of the courteous couple, Firmian said, “Oh! I am sick, sick, and weary of it all. I cannot carry on the joke any longer. In ten minutes more I intend to lie my last lie, and die—and would to GOD it were not a lie. Don’t let them bring in any lights, but cover me up at once with the mask, for I see very plainly that I shall not be able to control these eyes of mine, and when the mask is on, I shall, at all events, be able to let them weep as much as they like. Ah! Henry, my good, kind friend!”
The infusory chaos of Revel’s exhortation had made this weary figurant and mimicker of Death tender and grave. Henry—out of his delicate and loving solicitude—had undertaken all the lying parts of the rôle, and enacted those himself. He therefore (as the couple were coming back into the room), cried out, in a loud, anxious voice, “Firmian, how do you feel now?” “Better,” said Firmian, in a voice of emotion. “There are stars shining in this world’s night, though I, alas! am clamped to the dust, and cannot soar up to them. The bank of the lovely spring-time of eternity is steep, and, close as we day-flies are swimming to the shore of Life’s Dead Sea, we have not got our wings yet.” Yes! Death—sublime and glorious after sunset-sky of our St. Thomas’s Day—grand amen of our hope, spoken to our ears from the other world—would come to our beds in the likeness of a beautiful giant, with a garland on his brow, and lift us gently up into the æther, and rock us there to rest, were it not that we go to him only as maimed, stunned creatures, who are thrown into his giant arms. What robs Death of his glory is sickness; the pinions of the soul when it rises on its heavenward flight are heavy, and stained with blood, and tears, and mire. The only time when death is a flight—not a fall—is when some hero is smitten by one, single, mortal wound, when, as he stands like a spring-world, all new blossom, and old fruit, the next world suddenly flashes by him, like some comet, bearing him (miniature world as he is) all unwithered, along with it in its flight, to soar with it beyond the sun.
But this mental exaltation of Firmian’s would have been an indication of reviving strength and returning health to sharper eyes than Stiefel’s. It is upon the looker-on only—not upon the victim who is smitten down—that the battle-axe of Death casts a flash of light. It is with the death-bell as with other bells; it is those who are at a distance who hear the solemn, inspiring boom and music—not those who are within the sounding hemisphere. And as every bosom grows more sincere and more transparent in the hour of death—like the Siberian glass-apple, the kernel of which, when ripe, is covered only by a crystal case formed of sweet, transparent flesh—so Firmian, in this dithyrambic hour—near as he was to the bare edge of Death’s sickle—could have gladly sacrificed (that is, discovered) all the mystery and blossom of his future, but that by so doing he would have broken his word and grieved his friend. But nothing was left him now, save a patient heart, dumb lips, and weeping eyes.
Alas! and were not all his ostensible farewells real ones after all? As he drew his Henry and the Schulrath to his heart with trembling hands, was that heart not oppressed by the mournful certainty of losing the Schulrath on the morrow, and Henry in a week’s time, for ever? So that the following address which he made to them was nothing but the plain truth, mournful though it was. “Alas! we shall be scattered asunder by the four winds of heaven in a very, very little time. Ah! human arms are rotten bands. How short a time they hold! May all be well with you—and better than I ever deserved it might be with me. May the chaotic stone-heaps of your lives never come rolling down about your feet, or about your ears—may spring overspread the crags and cliffs around you with berries, and the freshest green! Good night for ever, dearly loved Schulrath, and you, my Henry!” He pressed the latter to his heart in silence, thinking how near the veritable parting was.
But he should have avoided stimulating his heart into feverish excitement by these pricks and stings of farewell, for he heard Lenette mourning out of sight behind the bed, and (with a deep death-wound in his overflowing heart) said, “Come, my beloved Lenette, and bid me good-bye;” and stretched out his arms in a wild manner to receive her. She came tottering, and sank into them, and on to his heart, while he was speechless under the crushing weight of his emotions; till at length, as she lay there trembling, he said, in a low voice, “Ah! poor, patient, faithful, tortured soul! how constantly and unceasingly have I caused you sorrow! Will you forgive me? Will you forget me?” (A spasm of sorrow clasped her closer to him.) “Ah! do but forget me, and forget me quite; for heaven knows you have never been happy with me!” Their voices were lost in sobs, only their tears could flow. A drawing, thirsting grief was grinding at his weary heart, and he went on: “No, no; with me you have truly had nothing, nothing but tears; but there are happy days coming for you, when I shall be gone from you.” He gave her his parting kiss, saying, “Live happy now, and let me be gone!” “But you are not going to die,” she cried again and again, with a thousand tears. He put his arms about her, he gently raised her fainting form from his breast, and said, very solemnly, “It is over now. Fate has sundered us; it is over and past.”