“You see I know something of witchcraft, do I not? But, come, I will now replace the stone again.”
“Gently, Herr Michel,” cried Peter, stepping backwards, and holding up the cross, “mice are caught with bacon, and this time you have been deceived;” and immediately he began to repeat the prayers that came into his mind.
Now Michel became less and less, fell to the ground, and writhed like a worm, groaning and moaning, and all the hearts round began to beat, and became convulsed, so that it sounded like a clockmaker’s workshop.
Peter was terrified, his mind was quite disturbed; he ran from the house, and, urged by the anguish of the moment, climbed up a steep rock, for he heard Michel get up, stamping and raving, and denouncing curses on him. When he reached the top, he ran towards the Tannenbühl; a dreadful thunder-storm came on; lightning flashed around him, splitting the trees, but he reached the precincts of the glass-mannikin in safety.
His heart beat joyfully—only because it did beat; but now he looked back with horror on his past life, as he did on the thunderstorm that was destroying the beautiful forest on his right and left. He thought of his wife, a beautiful, good woman, whom he had murdered from avarice; he appeared to himself an outcast from mankind, and wept bitterly as he reached the hill of the glass-mannikin.
The Schatzhauser was sitting under a pine-tree, and was smoking a small pipe; but he looked more serene than before.
“Why do you weep, Peter?” asked he, “have you not recovered your heart? Is the cold one still in your breast?”
“Alas! sir,” sighed Peter, “when I still carried about with me the cold stony heart, I never wept, my eyes were as dry as the ground in July; but now my old heart will almost break with what have done. I have driven my debtors to misery, set the dogs on the sick and poor, and you yourself know how my whip fell upon her beautiful forehead.”
“Peter, you were a great sinner,” said the little man. “Money and idleness corrupted you, until your heart turned to stone, and no longer knew joy, sorrow, repentance, or compassion. But repentance reconciles; and if I only knew that you were truly sorry for your past life, it might yet be in my power to do something for you.”
“I wish nothing more,” replied Peter, dropping his head sorrowfully. “It is all over with me, I can no more rejoice in my lifetime; what shall I do thus alone in the world? My mother will never pardon me for what I have done to her, and I have perhaps brought her to the grave, monster that I am! Elizabeth, my wife, too,—rather strike me dead, Herr Schatzhauser, then my wretched life will end at once.”