Bushes, thorny twigs, and the roots of trees hindered their progress. The child followed the vision of his mother, made clear now and then by the moon’s rays across the heavy foliage. They were in the mysterious wood of the family of Ibarra. Basilio often stumbled and fell, but he got up again, without feeling his hurts, or remembering his lameness. All his life was concentrated in his eyes, which never lost the beloved figure from view.
They crossed the brook, which was singing gently, and to his great surprise, Basilio saw his mother press through the thicket and enter the wooden door that closed the tomb of the old Spaniard. He tried to follow her, but the door was fast. Sisa was defending the entrance—holding the door closed with all her strength.
“Mother, it’s I, it’s I, Basilio, your son!” cried the child, falling from fatigue. But Sisa would not budge. Her feet braced against the ground, she offered an energetic resistance. Basilio examined the wall, but could not scale it. Then he made the tour of the grave. He saw a branch of the great tree, crossed by a branch of another. He began to climb, and his filial love did miracles. He went from branch to branch, and came over the tomb at last.
The noise he made in the branches startled Sisa. She turned and would have fled, but her son, letting himself drop from the tree, seized her in his arms and covered her with kisses; then, worn out, he fainted away.
Sisa saw his forehead bathed in blood. She bent over him, and her eyes, almost out of their sockets, were fixed on his face, which stirred the sleeping cells of her brain. Then something like a spark flashed through them. Sisa recognized her son, and with a cry fell on his senseless body, pressing it to her heart, kissing him and weeping. Then mother and son were both motionless.
When Basilio came to himself, he found his mother without consciousness. He called her, lavished tender names on her, and seeing she did not wake, ran for water and sprinkled her pale face. But the eyes remained closed. In terror, Basilio put his ear to her heart, but her heart no longer beat. The poor child embraced the dead body of his mother, weeping bitterly.
On this night of joy for so many children, who, by the warm hearth, celebrate the feast which recalls the first loving look Heaven gave to earth; on this night when all good Christian families eat, laugh, and dance, ’mid love and kisses; on this night which, for the children of cold countries, is magical with its Christmas trees, Basilio sits in solitude and grief. Who knows? Perhaps around the hearth of the silent Father Salvi are children playing; perhaps they are singing:
“Christmas comes,
And Christmas goes.”
The child was sobbing. When he raised his head, a man was looking silently down at him.