There is a withering monotony in the
diary of misery,--“one day telleth another.” But there came at length a
day, when the last coin was expended, the last meal devoured, the last
resource exhausted, the last hope annihilated, and the friendly priest
himself told them weeping, he had nothing to give them but his prayers. “That evening the family sat in profound and stupified silence together
for some hours, till the aged mother of Walberg, who had not for some
months uttered any thing but indistinct monosyllables, or appeared
conscious of any thing that was going on, suddenly, with that ominous
energy that announces its effort to be the last,--that bright flash of
parting life that precedes its total extinction, exclaimed aloud,
apparently addressing her husband, “There is something wrong here,--why
did they bring us from Germany? They might have suffered us to die
there,--they have brought us here to mock us, I think. Yesterday,--(her
memory evidently confounding the dates of her son’s prosperous and
adverse fortune), yesterday they clothed me in silk, and I drank wine,
and to-day they give me this sorry crust,--(flinging away the piece of
bread which had been her share of the miserable meal),--there is
something wrong here. I will go back to Germany,--I will!” and she rose
from her seat in the sight of the astonished family, who, horror-struck,
as they would have been at the sudden resuscitation of a corse, ventured
not to oppose her by word or movement. “I will go back to Germany,” she
repeated; and, rising, she actually took three or four firm and equal
steps on the floor, while no one attempted to approach her. Then her
force, both physical and mental, seemed to fail,--she tottered,--her
voice sunk into hollow mutterings, as she repeated, “I know the way,--I
know the way,--if it was not so dark.--I have not far to go,--I am very
near--_home_!” As she spoke, she fell across the feet of Walberg. The
family collected round her, and raised--a corse. “Thank God!” exclaimed
her son, as he gazed on his mother’s corse.--And this reversion of the
strongest feeling of nature,--this wish for the death of those for whom,
in other circumstances, we would ourselves have died, makes those who
have experienced it feel as if there was no evil in life but want, and
no object of rational pursuit but the means of avoiding it. Alas! if it
be so, for what purpose were hearts that beat, and minds that burn,
bestowed on us? Is all the energy of intellect, and all the enthusiasm
of feeling, to be expended in contrivances how to meet or shift off the
petty but torturing pangs of hourly necessity? Is the fire caught from
heaven to be employed in lighting a faggot to keep the cold from the
numbed and wasted fingers of poverty. Pardon this digression, Senhor,”
said the stranger, “but _I had a painful feeling, that forced me to make
it_.” He then proceeded. “The family collected around the dead body,--and it might have been a
subject worthy the pencil of the first of painters, to witness its
interment, as it took place the following night. As the deceased was a
heretic, the corse was not allowed to be laid in consecrated ground; and
the family, solicitous to avoid giving offence, or attracting notice on
the subject of their religion, were the only attendants on the funeral. In a small inclosure, at the rear of their wretched abode, her son dug
his mother’s grave, and Ines and her daughters placed the body in it. Everhard was absent in search of employment,--as they hoped,--and a
light was held by the youngest child, who smiled as he watched the
scene, as if it had been a pageant got up for his amusement. That light,
feeble as it was, showed the strong and varying expression of the
countenances on which it fell;--in Walberg’s there was a stern and
fearful joy, that she whom they were laying to rest had been “taken from
the evil to come,”--in that of Ines there was grief, mingled with
something of horror, at this mute and unhallowed ceremony.--Her
daughters, pale with grief and fear, wept silently; but their tears were
checked, and the whole course of their feelings changed, when the light
fell on another figure who appeared suddenly standing among them on the
edge of the grave,--it was that of Walberg’s father. Impatient of being
left alone, and wholly unconscious of the cause, he had groped and
tottered his way till he reached the spot; and now, as he saw his son
heap up the earth over the grave, he exclaimed, with a brief and feeble
effort of reminiscence, sinking on the ground, “Me, too,--lay me there,
the same spot will serve for both!” His children raised and supported
him into the house, where the sight of Everhard, with an unexpected
supply of provisions, made them forget the horrors of the late scene,
and postpone once more the fears of want till to-morrow. No inquiry how
this supply was obtained, could extort more from Everhard than that it
was the gift of charity. He looked exhausted and dreadfully pale,--and,
forbearing to press him with further questions, they partook of this
manna-meal,--this food that seemed to have dropped from heaven, and
separated for the night. * * * *

“Ines had, during this period of calamity, unremittingly enforced the
application of her daughters to those accomplishments from which she
still derived the hopes of their subsistence. Whatever were the
privations and disappointments of the day, their musical and other
exercises were strictly attended to; and hands enfeebled by want and
grief, plied their task with as much assiduity as when occupation was
only a variation of luxury. This attention to the ornaments of life,
when its actual necessaries are wanted,--this sound of music in a house
where the murmurs of domestic anxiety are heard every moment,--this
subservience of talent to necessity, all its generous enthusiasm lost,
and only its possible utility remembered or valued,--is perhaps the
bitterest strife that ever was fought between the opposing claims of our
artificial and our natural existence. But things had now occurred that
shook not only the resolution of Ines, but even affected her feelings
beyond the power of repression. She had been accustomed to hear, with
delight, the eager application of her daughters to their musical
studies;--now--when she heard them, the morning after the interment of
their grandmother, renewing that application--she felt as if the sounds
struck through her heart. She entered the room where they were, and they
turned towards her with their usual smiling demand for her approbation. “The mother, with the forced smile of a sickening heart, said she
believed there was no occasion for their practising any further that
day.