I repeated my question.
"Not so very well, sir," she replied in her Mark dialect. "When one has seventy-seven years on one's back the old eyes are of little use. But I can still manage tolerably with the hymn-book. I need only see the numbers and the big letters at the beginning to remember the whole at once; and if I can't get one verse exactly right, I think of the next one. Whoever has had experiences, and fears and loves the Lord, can make a verse for many a hymn in the book."
"You have a beautiful spot for your old age, mother, and are well taken care of, it seems to me."
The aged dame wore a new dark calico dress, and over her thin shoulders lay a black shawl, which, spite of the heat, she had pinned close.
"It's very comfortable, my dear sir, it's very comfortable," she replied, taking a pinch of snuff with her trembling hand. "The Canoness said so, too; that's why she didn't wish to go away again, not even when they wanted to take her to the castle. But she planted the flowers, and we have only kept our gardens so neat since she has been here. Well, everything will soon be at sixes and sevens again. You see, when I first came, thirteen years ago, just after my husband and my eldest daughter died, and there wasn't a soul to care for Mother Schulzen, I thought I should lead a wretched life in the almshouse. A silver groschen every day, free lodging, peat, and light, six groschen every quarter for beer money, and a bit of land where everybody can plant potatoes--that was hardly enough for a living. Dear me! A person who hasn't much is soon satisfied, and there is apt to be something put by for a rainy day. When the Canoness first came, though she had nothing herself, yet she always found something to give away. See, she gave me this woolen petticoat"--she pulled her dress up to her knees to show it--"on her last birthday, and the shawl at Christmas. That's why I wear it in her honor to-day, though it's certainly warm; but I want to look respectable when I follow the body, for a woman like her won't come again, and, as the hymn says:
'Alas, my Saviour, must Thou die,
That we the heirs of life may be?
Let not Thy woes, grief, agony,
On us be lost, but win to Thee.'"
She muttered to herself for a while, with her chin buried in her shawl, and seemed to have entirely forgotten my presence.