There was once a time—ay, the drops came quivering down as now—the dew-drops from the trees, when mother was taking you to make your first communion. I see you now, Peterl. You have a new jacket on, with a sprig of rosemary in your hat. Your little snow-white shirt shows round your neck above the waistcoat; and your cheeks are rosy red with scrubbing. Mother is wearing a bright-coloured dress, a brown apron and a black, tight-fitting jacket. Her broad neckerchief is of red silk and shines like fire and flame. A white-and-green spray of flowers sticks out of her bosom. On her head, she wears a high and costly golden cap, as was the fashion thenadays throughout the country; and the curls peep out on either side of the forehead, gleaming black like the two great pupils of her eyes and soft and dainty like the lashes on her lids. Her cheeks are tinged with the pink of the dawn; her chin is white and daintily curved. Her red lips wear a little smile and, at the same time, scold you, my little man, because you are skipping so pertly over the stones and roots and knocking the nails out of your shoes. No child alive has ever seen his mother in the full flower of her beauty; and yet how splendid it is, boy, even now! All's aglow in the wood and alight in the young larches; and the blooms are fragrant and the birds singing in every tree-top.
Ah, child-time is May-time!
A dull, heavy knocking roused me from my dream; I started up. Now they are laying my mother in the coffin; now they are nailing down the lid.
I rushed out of the shed and into the house. There, in the passage, stood the narrow, white, closed coffin; and the dimly-flickering oil-lamp now lit up only the empty, desolate plank on which the bier had stood.
I should have liked to see her once more….
The people were preparing the litter. Father knelt behind the door and prayed; the sisters wept in their pinafores; and my little brother sobbed terribly. The poor little fellow tried to keep in his tears, for he had heard that all was for the best with mother and that she was now enjoying peace in Heaven: he had smiled a little at that; but now, when the people were making ready to carry mother away for good and all, there was no comfort left in his sorely-afflicted little heart.
I took little brother by the hand and we went into the furthermost dark corner of the room, where no one else was and where only our sick mother had cared to sit. There we sat down on the bench. And there we sat while everything was being prepared outside, while the people sat down to table and shared the funeral repast.
They had come to show us sympathy; now they were eating, now they were laughing and then again they acted as was customary; and they actually rejoiced that one more person had died and, in so doing, brought variety into their everyday lives.
Suddenly, loud words were heard outside:
"Where is the Überthan? We can't find the Überthan."