In the high-road which led through a wood stood a solitary farm-house; the road,
in fact, ran right through its yard. The sun was shining and all the windows were
open; within the house people were very busy. In the yard, in an arbour formed
by lilac bushes in full bloom, stood an open coffin; thither they had carried
a dead man, who was to be buried that very afternoon. Nobody shed a tear over
him; his face was covered over with a white cloth, under his head they had placed
a large thick book, the leaves of which consisted of folded sheets of blotting-paper,
and withered flowers lay between them; it was the herbarium which he had gathered
in various places and was to be buried with him, according to his own wish. Every
one of the flowers in it was connected with some chapter of his life.
“Who is the dead man?” we asked.
“The old student,” was the reply. “They say that he was once an energetic young
man, that he studied the dead languages, and sang and even composed many songs;
then something had happened to him, and in consequence of this he gave himself
up to drink, body and mind. When at last he had ruined his health, they brought
him into the country, where someone paid for his board and residence. He was
gentle as a child as long as the sullen mood did not come over him; but when
it came he was fierce, became as strong as a giant, and ran about in the wood
like a chased deer. But when we succeeded in bringing him home, and prevailed
upon him to open the book with the dried-up plants in it, he would sometimes
sit for a whole day looking at this or that plant, while frequently the tears
rolled over his cheeks. God knows what was in his mind; but he requested us
to put the book into his coffin, and now he lies there. In a little while the
lid will be placed upon the coffin, and he will have sweet rest in the grave!”
The cloth which covered his face was lifted up; the dead man’s face expressed
peace—a sunbeam fell upon it. A swallow flew with the swiftness of an arrow
into the arbour, turning in its flight, and twittered over the dead man’s head.
What a strange feeling it is—surely we all know it—to look through old letters
of our young days; a different life rises up out of the past, as it were, with
all its hopes and sorrows. How many of the people with whom in those days we
used to be on intimate terms appear to us as if dead, and yet they are still
alive—only we have not thought of them for such a long time, whom we imagined
we should retain in our memories for ever, and share every joy and sorrow with
them.
The withered oak leaf in the book here recalled the friend, the schoolfellow,
who was to be his friend for life. He fixed the leaf to the student’s cap in
the green wood, when they vowed eternal friendship. Where does he dwell now?
The leaf is kept, but the friendship does no longer exist. Here is a foreign
hothouse plant, too tender for the gardens of the North. It is almost as if
its leaves still smelt sweet! She gave it to him out of her own garden—a nobleman’s
daughter.
Here is a water-lily that he had plucked himself, and watered with salt tears—a
lily of sweet water. And here is a nettle: what may its leaves tell us? What
might he have thought when he plucked and kept it? Here is a little snowdrop
out of the solitary wood; here is an evergreen from the flower-pot at the tavern;
and here is a simple blade of grass.
The lilac bends its fresh fragrant flowers over the dead man’s head; the swallow
passes again—“twit, twit;” now the men come with hammer and nails, the lid is
placed over the dead man, while his head rests on the dumb book—so long cherished,
now closed for ever!