When in May a white-edged, black cloud discharges a storm of hail upon the fresh, green wheat, the tender blades break and are buried out of sight beneath heavy sleet; when the storm is past, and the ice melted, and the sun once more beaming bright and warm in cloudless skies, the bruised blades think they cannot bear the light, and lying close upon the ground would fain die. Then over the fields thus laid waste many a head is shaken, and many a sigh is breathed for the broken promise of the harvest.
But some there are who, seeing farther and knowing better, shrug their shoulders, and say "A hailstorm in spring prostrates, but does not kill!" and they look forward hopefully to the future.
Gradually, and very slowly, the warm sunshine penetrates the crushed blades, awakening and strengthening within them the benumbed forces of youth. Before the summer is fully abroad in the land, the wheat stands erect and tall, to the inexperienced eye all unharmed, but the husbandman can detect the callous ring where the blade was bent, and says: "The wheat has been shot in the knee."
Thus it is with youthful souls, crushed to the earth in the spring-time of life by some fierce tempest. Slowly but surely the spirit, well-nigh wounded to death, recovers, and God grants to the hearts of those whom he loves a glorious resurrection.
Gabrielle recovered from the fearful blow that had befallen her,--very slowly, and painfully to be sure, but at last. At first indeed, her grief was so profound, she suffered so silently, so tearlessly, that they feared for her reason, and then, when all seemed darkest to her, she was suddenly possessed by an intense, inexplicable yearning to return to the pretty home in the Avenue Labédoyère in which the fairest hours of her shattered bliss had been spent.
Her desire was complied with; and for many a long winter night Zinka sat beside her by the same little white bed where the girl had once whispered to her in the delirium of her happiness that it seemed as if her heart would break with joy. With tenderest sympathy the young stepmother talked of the departed unweariedly with the girl, allowing her tears free course, without ever cruelly attempting to restrain the expression of her grief. And when Truyn, in despair over such endless grieving, unreasonably taxed his wife with exciting Ella's emotion, and with hindering her from forgetting, Zinka replied gently, "Let me alone; I know what I am doing. There is nothing more terrible, more dreadful than the spectre of a grief that has been violently stifled; it lurks in wait for us, and persecutes us all the more persistently, the more resolutely we thrust it from us. The memory of our beloved dead must not be banished, it must be tenderly welcomed and cherished, until in time it loses all bitterness, and is ever with us, sad, but very dear."
Truyn listened incredulously, but a few weeks later he perceived with surprise, and with trembling delight that Gabrielle's pale cheeks began to show a faint colour, and that her weary gait grew more elastic. Then when he was alone with Zinka he kissed her gratefully, saying "I see you understand better than I how to comfort."
"And from whom did I learn the art?" she asked in reply, with a loving glance, "do you not see that I am only repaying old debts?"
With the first snowdrops in February came a golden-haired little brother for Gabrielle, who, by Zinka's desire was christened "Ossi." Thus Gabrielle learned to utter her dead lover's name without tears. She idolizes the little one, and sometimes smiles when she has him in her arms; he has given her a fresh interest in life. Georges who came to Paris the last of May, only to see the Truyns, and to find out especially how Gabrielle was, perceived this with pleasure, and said much that was encouraging to Truyn, who is still anxious about his sorrowing child. A hailstorm in spring prostrates, but does not kill.