As she slept, she had a dream or, at least, she believed it was a dream.
Hans appeared to her, clothed, as he was in his coffin, in his Sunday dress and his pelisse lined with swans’-down, in his hand his doll with the enamel eyes and on his feet his bread shoes.
He seemed to be sad.
He had not the halo that death ought to give to the little innocents; for, if a child is placed in the ground, it comes out an angel.
The roses of Paradise were not flourishing on his pale cheeks, coloured white by death; tears fell from his blond eyelashes, and great sighs swelled his little breast.
The vision disappeared, and the mother awoke, bathed in perspiration, delighted at having seen her child, terrified at having seen him so sad; but she reassured herself by saying, “Poor Hans! even in Paradise he cannot forget me.”
The following night, the apparition was repeated: Hans was still more sad and more pale.
His mother, stretching her arms out to him, said:
“Dear child, take comfort, and do not weary in Heaven; I shall soon rejoin you.”
The third night, Hans came again; he moaned and cried more than at the other times, and he disappeared with his little hands joined; he no longer had his doll, but he still had his bread shoes.