This mood was deepened by the death of the oldest of the almshouse dames, a feeble crone of eighty-four, who had recently been unable to perform her duties as attendant. During the last three days she was unconscious, and her exhausted flame of life went out without a flicker: When I spoke to my friend, who had not left her side, of this easy death as something enviable, she shook her head gravely, and replied: "I would prefer a different one, like my dear Uncle Joachim's. I wish to be conscious when I am dying, to experience my own death, and not, so to speak, steal out of the world behind my own back."
She insisted that, at the burial in the almshouse church-yard--where only the inmates of the almshouse were interred--her pupils should sing a choral and Mendelssohn's "It is Appointed by God's Will," an honor which had never before fallen to a poor woman's lot, so that some wiseacres asserted she was overdoing the matter. But that did not trouble her in the least.
"When they bear me out some day," she said, as we returned from the funeral, "see, dear friend, that I, too, find my last resting-place yonder. I do not wish to be dragged through the whole city to the other cemetery, with its pompous marble monuments. And place no cross on my grave. I have borne it enough during my life; in death, let the earth rest lightly on me. What I possess will go to my old guard; you must attend to it, after first choosing some memento you value. Promise me that! I have written my last will and given it to the burgomaster."
These words could not specially disturb or sadden me. I saw her walking by my side in the full vigor of life, and though, since the day she had sustained such a fright, her hair had grown still more silvery, she seemed, in her gentle melancholy, younger and fairer than ever.
She was also even more affectionate and tender to all, including myself. And, though I had already passed my fortieth year and ought to have grown sensible, her mild words and the faint air of sadness that surrounded her fanned the old flames I had with so much difficulty subdued, and one evening they not only flashed from my eyes but darted from my tongue.
The heat for several days had been equal to that of summer, so we had been weeding and watering the young plants in her garden. Then we sat down side by side on the little bench, and I said: "Do you know, Frau Luise, that this is the anniversary of the day on which, twenty years ago, I first saw you?"
She reflected a short time and then answered: "I have no memory for dates. But I know one thing, Johannes: there has not been a single day since then when I could have doubted you."
While speaking, she gazed thoughtfully into vacancy, as if this great truth were dawning upon her to-day for the first time. This gave me some little encouragement.
"Frau Luise," I continued, "that day seems to me like yesterday. And not one has passed since then that I have not felt you are the dearest creature in the world to me. But must we live on thus to the end, only together a few hours, though we feel that we belong to each other? You have long known my feelings. Can you not resolve to make the bond that unites us still firmer, to grant me the right to lay my whole insignificant self at your feet before the eyes of the world?"
The words had leaped from my lips as if some one else had lured them from my inmost soul, and I was startled at my boldness as I heard the sound of my own voice. I dared not look at her. I felt, or thought I felt, that she was forcing herself to keep calm and not rebuke my presumption. After a long pause, she replied, in a voice whose tones were sorrowful rather than indignant: