"It is the evening sun, father."
"Ay, this day shall we see one another again!" continued the old man; but he spoke of his wife, who was long since dead.
The son was unable, from his emotion, to paint to his father the blessedness of meeting again upon the earth, which he had that very day enjoyed by anticipation and described upon his journey; or to say to him how it comes, that meeting again is a renewal of love in a better state; and that, if the first meeting was apt to overflow into the future, reminiscence binds the flowers of the present and the fruits of the past upon one stem.
Who could have courage to speak of the joys of earthly meeting to one who seemed to be already in the contemplation of a meeting in heaven?
Startled, he asked, "Father, what ails thee?"
"I do think thereon in the dark hour; ay, thereon and thereupon again; and death is also beautiful, and the parting in Christ," murmured to himself the old man, as he tried to take Gottreich's hand, which he had not strength to press. It was but the usual nervous snatching of the fingers of the dying. He continued to think that his son was still speaking to him, and said, more and more distinctly and emphatically, "O thou blessed God!" until all the other luminaries of life were extinguished, and in his soul there stood nothing but the one sun,--God!
At length he raised himself, and, stretching out his arm forcibly, exclaimed: "There are three fair rainbows over the evening sun; I must go after the sun, and pass through with him!" He then fell back, and all was over.
At that moment the sun went down, and there glimmered at his setting a broad rainbow in the east.
"He is gone!" said Gottreich to Justa, in a voice choked with grief; "but he is gone from us unto his God, in the midst of great, pious, and unmingled joy; then weep no more, Justa!"
At that moment his own hitherto restrained tears found a vent, and he pressed the dead hand against his face.