When at length, in the most beautiful month of May which ever Germany had won by conquest, the festivals of victory and of peace began in more than one nation. Gottreich was unwilling to pass those days of rejoicing so far from those who were dearest to him; he longed for their company, that his joy might be doubled: so he took the road to Heim. Thousands, before and after him, journeyed at that time over the liberated land, from a happy past to a happy future; but few there were who saw, like Gottreich, so pure a firmament over the mountains of his native valleys, in which not a star was missing, but every one of them was twinkling and bright. Justa had already sent him the little annals of the parsonage; had told him how she longed for his return, and how his father rejoiced; how well the old man stood the labors of his office, and how she had still better secrets of joy in store for him. To these latter belonged, perhaps, one which he had not forgotten, namely, her promise to give him her hand after the great peace.
With such prospects he enjoyed in thought, ever from Whitsuntide forwards, that holy evening when he should unexpectedly relieve the old man from all his labors, and begin to prepare the tranquil festivities of the village.
As he was thus thinking upon that day's meeting, and as the mountains above his father's village, in which he was so soon to clasp those fond hearts to his own, were seen more and more clearly in relief against the blue sky, his "Reminiscences of the best Hours of Life for the Hour of Death" re-echoed in his soul, and he could not refrain from noting amongst them, as he went along, the joy of meeting again here below.
Behind him there was coming up a storm from the east, in the direction of his home, before which he seemed to come a happy messenger; for the storms of war, which he had seen upon the earth, had reconciled to him and made him love those of heaven; and the parched ground, the dropping flowers, and the ears of corn had long been thirsting for the waters of the warm clouds. A parishioner of Heim, who was laboring in the fields, saluted him as he passed, and expressed his joy that the rain and Gottreich had both come at last together.
And now he caught sight of the low church-steeple, peeping from the clustered trees, and he entered upon that tract of the valley where the parsonage lay, all reddened by the evening sun. At every window he hoped to see his betrothed one, if perchance she might be looking out on the sunset before the storm came on; and as he came nearer, he hoped to see the lattice open, and Whitsuntide brooms in the chief apartment; but he found nothing of all this.
At last he entered quietly the parsonage-house, and slowly opened the well-known door. The room was empty, but he heard a noise overhead. When he opened the door of his upper chamber, which was filled with a glow from the west, Justa was kneeling before the bed of his father, who, sitting half upright, was looking with a haggard, stiff, and bony countenance toward the setting sun before him. A clasp of her lover to her breast, and one exclamation, was all his reception. But his father stretched his wizened hand slowly out, and said, with difficulty, "Thou art come at the right time!" without adding whether he spoke of the preachings or of their separation.
Justa hastily related how the old man had overworked himself, till body and spirit had given way together,--so that he no longer took a share in anything, though he longed to be with the sharers,--and how he lay prostrate with broken wings, looking upwards like a needy child. The old man was grown hard of hearing, and she could say all this in his presence.
Gottreich soon confirmed it to himself. He would fain have infused the fire of conquest, reflected in his own bosom, which, like a red evening cloud, was announcing a fair dawn to Europe, into that old and once strong heart; but he heard neither wish nor question of it. The old man gazed steadily upon the sun, until at last it was hid by the storm. Nevertheless the war of the elements seemed to touch him but little; the glare of life broke dimly through the thickening ice of death. A dying man knows no present,--nothing but the future and the past.
On a sudden the landscape grew dark, all the winds stood pent, the earth oppressed; then there came a gush of rain and a crash of thunder. The lightning streamed around the old man, and he looked up altered and astonished. "Hist!" said he; "I hear the rain once more;--speak quickly, children, for I shall soon depart."
Both his children clung to him, but he was too weak to embrace them.