“Like a picture in its frame, there stood his wife”
And old Liebereich, too, did everything just as he had planned it. He lay quietly in his bed until they shouted, “Merry Christmas, Liebereich! Wake up!” Then he rose and took his wife in his arms and laughed at them,—in the very faces of them all!—and told them how cunningly he had fooled them. Precisely as he had planned.
And he had two recollections of the moment. One was that Mrs. Schwalm smiled when she saw the blue feather-stitched night-shirt; the other was that his wife was the prettiest of them all. After that came the vast happiness—all as he had planned.
For all of this, from the second opening of that door, old Liebereich had only dreamed. But, quite as they had said, he would never know better, for he never woke.
And when the neighbors indeed came through that door again in the morning, with guilt upon them, with stealth, wondering whether he were now dead, while it was yet dark, holding candles once more to his eyes, old Liebereich met them with such a beautiful, smiling, heaven-touched face that, one and all, they dropped to their knees. And their eyes were not dry.
And I am no longer sure of that philosophy, a few pages past, where we agreed that nothing could be better than to wait for old Liebereich’s wife—and Christmas.
Or maybe the German wives are right, and he is better off?
For perhaps he hears sweeter music than the Christmas bells; perhaps there is a more glorious light than the morning sun in that doorway; perhaps the background of his picture is crowded with fairer faces than those of his former neighbors. God knows! Perhaps immortal youth has, in truth, come. Perhaps he does, indeed, embrace his wife. Else what is the use of heaven? God knows!