"Little by little we became familiarized with our position and enjoyed it. The more we studied human nature the more we admired it's clemency, justice, and rectitude. One evening we ventured cautiously out of our retreat, and looked about the village. Before each window hung cages filled with solitary prisoners. There I recognized the cruel nightingale, the linnet who had caused me so much anguish, and many other birds who had been in the habit of tormenting us in the forest. We returned home enchanted with our expedition. 'Here at last we have found justice,' cried I. 'In this happy land the wicked are punished for their cruelty and prevented from doing further mischief; while the good are left free and happy. Why, there was not an owl to be seen among the prisoners! We have reason to be grateful that at last we have reached a haven of rest and tranquility.'
"We at once decided that I should go in search of our old friend, and induce him to share our happiness. 'Poor soul!' we said, 'at last the destiny which he has so long sought is within his reach. Now, at last, he will see that our hopes of final happiness were not mere dreams.'
"A few nights after I set out on a visit to our friend in his obscure retreat. We parted full of joy in thinking of the good old solitary, whose last days we were to make so peaceful. I flew at full speed, and reached the wood without fatigue. Full of hope, and picturing the pleasant surprise my coming would arouse in him, I entered his dwelling quite suddenly, exclaiming, 'Here I am, father; I have come to take you away from this place, and show you that happiness which you have always treated as a chimera.' 'Is it you, my son?' he said with joyful astonishment, but in a weak, choked voice; and I saw that a great change had come over him. A shutter ran through me. 'Oh, yes, it is I,' replied I cheerfully. 'We have not forgotten you, and we shall not be able to enjoy our happiness unless you are there to share it with us. Come, I will tell you the rest on the way. But what ails you that you do not move?' 'Nothing, my son; it will soon be ended. Before this day closes I shall be cured.' 'Cured!—why, are you ill? you who were so strong and hearty!' 'The illness from which I am suffering has always afflicted me,' he said, 'but the time of cure has come; the physician is at hand.' 'The physician! what physician?' 'Death,' he answered in a hollow voice. 'Death!' cried I, 'what do you mean? would you leave us? we cannot live without you. Oh, come away! come with me! have you no pity on me?' 'Pity! yes, child, I pity you for your youth, and because you do not stand where I stand now. It is you who have no pity in holding me back from my repose. Let me rest, my son, in the eternal peace of nature.'
"His head dropped forward heavily. He was dead. Dead at the moment when I offered him the accomplishment of hopes long since abandoned.
"I flew away horror stricken, as if an enemy were tracking me to destruction; but what I fled from was planted in my heart never to be uprooted. The night fell—one of those dreary autumn evenings when cloud and mist contend for mastery. With a heart oppressed with grief, I returned to the scenes I had passed through so gayly a few hours before. What had I left? Parents, brothers, children, friends, all dead—my opinion alone remained to sustain and comfort me; to be consoled and supported.
"Absorbed in these gloomy ideas, I reached the confines of the village. Afar off I recognized the hospitable roof that had given us shelter, and my heart beat with joy in spite of my affliction. But who were that troop of children gathered before the barn door? What did these cries of joy, and stamping of feet, and clasping of hands portend, and the smiling old folks looking on and encouraging their sports? Of course it must be some pure and virtuous amusement since children joined in it, so I flew on with a sense of kindly interest. As the distance lessened, I thought I saw—I [{272}] knew I saw a bird banging with outstretched wings on the born-door—nailed there, bleeding, dead. Oh! heaven's justice! my companion murdered! dead! butchered! And that before the eyes of nature, under the light of heaven! And no protesting voice raised from the bosom of the earth! I hung about there, staring at the horrid sight with my heart turned to stone within me. As night deepened the children dispersed, and then I fell upon that inanimate form like a wild beast, and fastened upon the nails with beak and claws to tear their prey from them. My furious struggles only served to lacerate me till I bled; and all the time the dead thing looked at me; its cold, fixed glassy eyes glared at me with a cruel irony that scared me from the place. Yet night and day I wandered about the barn, and night and day watched that dreadful object, until at the end of two weeks madness relieved me of reason and self-consciousness. Then I went away with a heart bubbling over with hatred of humanity. Oh, that I could have clutched the human race in one single body within these claws, to tear out its eyes, devour its heart, and fling the carrion to be the sport of winds and tempests!
"The thread of my life was broken. What more had I to do with the earth, that wicked stepmother who gives us light only to make its glare insufferable. With frantic speed I rushed through the valley, and paused only when fatigue and hunger forced me to rest. I stopped on the margin of a little stream shaded by bushy alders, while the turf along its edge was strewn with wheat. I drew near to eat, but hardly had I touched the earth when I felt myself caught and held fast, 'Well,' thought I, 'man would be unworthy of his name if he did not use all his splendid gifts for the destruction of others. At least I will thank him for ridding me of life.' And then I fell into a gloomy stupor, and became indifferent to everything around me, while in my memory there arose visions of childhood—of the old nest in the tower of my parents, and the pretty little brothers whom I had vowed never to part from; and as my heart swelled with the woeful regrets these images brought up to me, I suddenly caught sight of the fowler running toward me in all haste, and at the same instant I beheld my brother—my brother whom I had never seen since our childhood. A transport of joy came over me; now I was safe, and he it was who would release me. We would fly away somewhere together and begin life over again. Divine hope! it restored strength and courage to me. 'Brother, brother!' I cried anxiously, 'here I am—come this way. Don't you see me?' He turned his eyes toward me. 'Why, is that you? Caught in a trap, aren't you? I really wish I had time to stop and help you, but I am in full chase after a young owl who has given me considerable encouragement. You had better get out of that snare pretty quick, for the keepers coming. Good-by till we meet again.'
"And now anything, everything seemed possible, explicable, credible. All my other miseries faded away in view of this lie against friendship, this insult to humanity, this blasphemy against pity.
"But after all is said and done, the instinct of life is of all feelings the most irresistible. A moment before I had loathed existence; now, when I saw the fowler draw near, I struggled wildly with beak and claws and wings to save myself. In the presence of death the sun looked bright to me once more, and life again seemed good. A few more desperate springs and struggles and I was free—flying whither? to my native forest, where I had first known misery and disappointment, now my only companions. There all would be unchanged, I thought, except myself. I only should be hopeless, I alone gloomy and silent amid the undying joys of serene nature. But—ah me! when I reached the old place disappointment was lying in wait for [{273}] me there too. The dear old nest was gone; the wall had crumbled away and was strewing the mountain-side. The kindly ivy that sheltered us once was crawling on the earth; the beeches had decayed and scrub bushes choked up the place where they had stood. Everything in me and in nature was dead, and so nothing was left but to bid good b to memory and joy—aye, and to trouble too, for the matter of that.
"This was my last deception. From that day to this I have stagnated here, learning, hoping, fearing nothing' Joy and sorrow are so far away in the past that they seem never to have belonged to me. And this is peace."