At mid-afternoon it began to snow. The pity of it—that Jean could not see it! She so loved the snow.
The snow continued to fall. At six o’clock the hearse drew up to the door to bear away its pathetic burden. As they lifted the casket, Paine began playing on the orchestrelle Schubert’s “Impromptu,” which was Jean’s favorite. Then he played the Intermezzo; that was for Susy; then he played the Largo; that was for their mother. He did this at my request. Elsewhere in my Autobiography I have told how the Intermezzo and the Largo came to be associated in my heart with Susy and Livy in their last hours in this life.
From my windows I saw the hearse and the carriages wind along the road and gradually grow vague and spectral in the falling snow, and presently disappear. Jean was gone out of my life, and would not come back any more. Jervis, the cousin she had played with when they were babies together—he and her beloved old Katy—were conducting her to her distant childhood home, where she will lie by her mother’s side once more, in the company of Susy and Langdon.
DECEMBER 26TH. The dog came to see me at eight o’clock this morning. He was very affectionate, poor orphan! My room will be his quarters hereafter.
The storm raged all night. It has raged all the morning. The snow drives across the landscape in vast clouds, superb, sublime—and Jean not here to see.
2:30 P.M.—It is the time appointed. The funeral has begun. Four hundred miles away, but I can see it all, just as if I were there. The scene is the library in the Langdon homestead. Jean’s coffin stands where her mother and I stood, forty years ago, and were married; and where Susy’s coffin stood thirteen years ago; where her mother’s stood five years and a half ago; and where mine will stand after a little time.
FIVE O’CLOCK.—It is all over.
When Clara went away two weeks ago to live in Europe, it was hard, but I could bear it, for I had Jean left. I said we would be a family. We said we would be close comrades and happy—just we two. That fair dream was in my mind when Jean met me at the steamer last Monday; it was in my mind when she received me at the door last Tuesday evening. We were together; WE WERE A FAMILY! the dream had come true—oh, precisely true, contentedly, true, satisfyingly true! and remained true two whole days.
And now? Now Jean is in her grave!
In the grave—if I can believe it. God rest her sweet spirit!