CHAPTER XIX.
"As formerly Anna Maria had been baptized beside the dead body of her mother, so now was the little boy at his father's coffin. On the same spot where, scarcely a year before, the clergyman had married the young couple stood the black, silver-mounted coffin, almost covered over with wreaths and flowers. The folding-doors of the hall were opened wide; the last crimson ray of the setting sun fell through the windows and made the light of the numerous candles appear feeble and yellow, and touched Anna Maria's face with a rosy shimmer, as she bent over the child in her arms.
"The long white christening-robe of the child contrasted strangely with the deep black of the mourning dress which enveloped the tall figure of the girl. I stood beside her, my hands resting on the child; by my side was Isa in a profusion of black crape. A throng of mourners filled the hall, gentlemen and ladies. I do not remember who they all were, but I can still see Stürmer's pale face.
"A chair had been placed aright for Susanna, and she sat in it as if petrified in pain and sorrow—a strange sight, this child in widow's garb. The raging pain had abated, she had wept and sobbed herself weary; now only great tears rolled down her marble cheeks. Bluish rings lay about her eyes, and made them shine more ardently than ever. She kept her slender hands folded and listened to the words of the clergyman, a picture of the most hopeless and comfortless pain.
"How many eyes then grew moist; how the servants wept outside the door! The clergyman spoke affectingly; once before he had thus baptized a child in this house. A quiver went through Anna Maria's tall figure, but she pressed her lips firmly together. She did not weep, she only pressed the child closer to her; then she took it to the young mother. I can still see how Susanna sat there, with the little boy on her lap, as the clergyman blessed them. She bent her head so that the black veil almost covered her and the child.
"But now the clergyman passed on to the funeral address, and when he mentioned the full name of the dead man I saw Isa spring up quickly—the young wife had fainted. She was carried to her room. A murmur of sympathy went through the assembly. 'A bruise for her whole life,' I heard whispered behind me. 'Poor young wife—still half a child! She will never recover from it!'
"Of Anna Maria, who stood there, no one thought. No one had said a sympathetic word to her. All the pity belonged to the young widow, still so young, so charming, and already so unhappy! They knew she was not on good terms with her sister-in-law. They knew Anna Maria only as proud and cold.
"Anna Maria, if they could have seen you late that evening, in the dark garden, at the fresh grave; if they had found you, as I found you, so undone with grief and pain, kneeling on the damp earth, unwilling to leave the flower-strewn mound under which your only brother lay—would they not have granted you, too, a word of sympathy?
"Those were sad, dreadful weeks which now followed, weeks in which we, first regaining our senses, began to miss him who had left us forever. Everywhere his kind, fresh nature, his ever-mild disposition, were wanting. It seemed every moment as if he must open the door and ask in his soft voice: 'How are you, aunt? Where is Anna Maria?'