And, looking upwards, into the infinite blue of the morning sky, he saw Hel’s countenance, which he had loved, and it was like the countenance of the beautiful angel of Death, smiling at him, its lips inclining towards his brow.
Great black wings spread themselves out, strong enough to carry a lost world up to heaven.
“Hel ...” said the man. “My Hel ... at last....”
And his fingers lost their hold, voluntarily....
Joh Fredersen did not see the fall, neither did he hear the cry of the multitude as it stared back. He saw but one thing: the white-gleaming figure of the man, who, upright and uninjured, was walking along the roof of the cathedral with the even step of one fearing nothing, carrying the girl in his arms.
Then Joh Fredersen bent down, so low that his forehead touched the stones of the cathedral square. And those near enough to him heard the weeping which welled up from his heart, as water from a rock.
As his hands loosened from his head, all who stood around him saw that Joh Fredersen’s hair had turned snow-white.
CHAPTER XXIII
“Beloved—!” said Freder, Joh Fredersen’s son.
It was the softest, the most cautious call of which a human voice is capable. But Maria answered it just as little as she had answered the shouts of despair with which the man who loved her had wished to re-awaken her to consciousness of herself.