Looking toward sunset

by Unknown

If it be pain for us to love and to contradict at the same time, to refuse with the head what the heart grants, it is all the sweeter to us to find ourselves and our faith transplanted into a younger being. Life is then as a beautiful night, in which, as one star goes down, another rises in its place. Gottreich possessed a paradise, in which he labored as his father’s gardener. He was at once the wife, the brother, the friend of his parent; the all that is to be loved by man. Every Sunday brought him a new pleasure,—that of preaching a sermon before his father. If the eyes of the old man became moistened, or if he suddenly folded his hands in an attitude of prayer, that Sunday became the holiest of festivals. Many a festival has there been in that quiet little parsonage, the joyfulness of which no one understood and no one perceived. The love and approbation of an energetic old man, like Hartmann, whose spiritual limbs had by no means stiffened on the chilly ridge of years, could not but exercise a powerful influence on a young man like Gottreich, who, more tenderly and delicately formed both in body and mind, was wont to shoot forth in loftier and more rapid flame.

To these two happy men was added a happy woman also. Justa, an orphan, sole mistress of her property, had sold the house which had been her father’s in the city, and had removed into the upper part of a good peasant’s cottage, to live entirely in the country. Justa did nothing by halves; she often did things more than completely, as most would think at least, in all that touched her generosity. She had not long resided in the village of Heim, and seen the meek Gottreich, and listened to some of his spring-tide sermons, ere she discovered that he had won her heart, filled as it was with the love of virtue. She nevertheless refused to give him her hand until the conclusion of the great peace, after which they were to be married. She was ever more fond of doing what is difficult than what is easy. I wish it were here the place to tell of the May-time life they led, which seemed to blossom in the low parsonage-house, near the church-door, under Justa’s hand; how she came from her own cottage, in the morning, to order matters in the little dwelling for the day; how the evenings were passed in the garden, ornamented with a few pretty flower-beds, and commanding a view of many a well-watered meadow, and distant hill, and stars without number; how these three hearts played into one another, no one of which, in this most pure and intimate intercourse, knew or felt anything which was not of the fairest; and how cheerfulness and good intention marked the passage of their lives. Every bench was a church seat, all was peaceful and holy, and the firmament above was an infinite church-dome.

In many a village and in many a house is hidden a true Eden, which has neither been named nor marked down; for happiness is fond of covering over and concealing her tenderest flowers. Gottreich reposed in such tenderness of love and bliss, of poetry and religion, of spring-time, of the past and of the future, that, in the depths of his heart, he feared to speak out his happiness, save in prayer. In prayer, thought he, man may say all his happiness and his misery. His father was very happy also. There came over him a warm old age; no winter night, but a summer evening without chill or darkness; albeit the sun of his life was sunk pretty deep below the mound of earth under which his wife was lain down to sleep.

In these sweetest May-hours of youth, when heaven and earth and his own heart were beating together in triune harmony, Gottreich gave ardent words to his ardent thoughts, and kept them written down, under the title of “Reminiscences of the best Hours of Life, for the Hour of Death.” He meant to cheer himself, in his last hours, with these views of his happy life; and to look back, through them, from the glow of his evening to the bright morning of his youth.

Thus lived these three beings, even rejoicing more deeply in one another, and in their genial happiness, when the chariots of war began to roll over the land.[N] Gottreich became another man. The active powers of his nature, which had heretofore been the quiet audience of his poetical and oratorical powers, now arose. It seemed as if the spirit of energy, which hitherto had wasted itself on empty air, like the flames of a bituminous soil, were now seeking an object to lay hold of. He did not venture to propose separating from his father, but he alternately refreshed and tormented himself inwardly with the idea of sharing the labors and combats of his countrymen. He confided his wishes to Justa only; but she did not give him encouragement, because she feared the old man’s solitude would be too great for him to bear. But at last the old man himself became inspirited for the war, by Gottreich and his betrothed; and he said to his son that he had better go; that he knew he had long desired it, and had only been silent through love for him. He hoped, with God’s aid, to be able to discharge his pastoral duties for a year, and thus he also would be doing something to serve his country.

[N] The war of 1813, against Napoleon, to secure the independence of Germany.

Gottreich departed, trusting to the autumnal strength of his father’s life. He enlisted as a common soldier, and preached also wherever he was able. The entrance on a new career awakens new energies and powers, which rapidly unfold into life and vigor. Although fortune spared him the wounds which he would willingly have brought back with him into the peaceful future of his life, in memory of the focus of his youth, as it were, yet it was happiness enough to take part in the battles, and, like an old republican, to fight together with a whole nation, for the common cause.

At length, in the beautiful month of May, the festivals of victory and peace began in more than one nation; and Gottreich was unwilling to pass those days of rejoicing so far from the friends who were dearest to him. He longed for their company, that his joy might be doubled; so he took the road to Heim. Thousands at that time journeyed over the liberated land, from a happy past to a happy future. But there were few who saw, like Gottreich, so pure a firmament over the mountains of his native valleys, in which not a star was missing, but every one of them was bright and twinkling. Justa had, from time to time, sent him the little annals of the parsonage. She had written how she longed for his return, and how his father rejoiced; how well the old man stood the labors of his office; and how she had still better secrets in store for him. To these belonged, perhaps, her promise, which he had not forgotten, to give him her hand after the great peace.

With such prospects before him, Gottreich ever enjoyed in thought that holy evening when he should see the sun go down at Heim,—when he should arrive unexpectedly, to relieve the old man from all his cares, and begin to prepare the tranquil festivities of the village. As he was thinking of that day’s meeting, when he should clasp those fond hearts to his own, and as the mountains above his father’s village were seen more and more clearly in relief against the blue sky, the Reminiscences of the best hours of life, which he had written for the hour of death, echoed and re-echoed in his soul; and, as he went along, he dwelt particularly upon one among them, which commemorated the joy of meeting again here below.

A shower was coming up behind him, of which he seemed to be the happy messenger; for the parched ground, the drooping flowers, and the ears of corn had long been thirsting for water from the warm clouds. A parishioner of Heim, who was laboring in the fields, saluted him as he passed, and expressed joy that Gottreich and the rain had both come at last. Soon he caught sight of the low church-steeple, peeping above the clustered trees; and he entered upon that tract in the valley where the parsonage lay, all reddened by the evening sun. At every window he hoped to see his betrothed one, thinking perchance she might be looking out on the sunset before the storm came on. As he drew nearer, he hoped to see the lattice open, and Whitsuntide-brooms in the chief apartment; but he saw nothing of all this.