第116章
《安徒生童话英文版 全TXT版》章节:第116章,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
she said with groans and tears.
The coffin was carried to the grave, and the disconsolate mothersat with her young daughters. She looked at them, but she saw themnot; for her thoughts were far away from the domestic hearth. She gaveherself up to her grief, and it tossed her to and fro, as the seatosses a ship without compass or rudder. So the day of the funeralpassed away, and similar days followed, of dark, wearisome pain.With tearful eyes and mournful glances, the sorrowing daughters andthe afflicted husband looked upon her who would not hear their wordsof comfort; and, indeed, what comforting words could they speak,when they were themselves so full of grief? It seemed as if shewould never again know sleep, and yet it would have been her bestfriend, one who would have strengthened her body and poured peace intoher soul. They at last persuaded her to lie down, and then she wouldlie as still as if she slept.
One night, when her husband listened, as he often did, to herbreathing, he quite believed that she had at length found rest andrelief in sleep. He folded his arms and prayed, and soon sunkhimself into healthful sleep; therefore he did not notice that hiswife arose, threw on her clothes, and glided silently from thehouse, to go where her thoughts constantly lingered- to the grave ofher child. She passed through the garden, to a path across a fieldthat led to the churchyard. No one saw her as she walked, nor didshe see any one; for her eyes were fixed upon the one object of herwanderings. It was a lovely starlight night in the beginning ofSeptember, and the air was mild and still. She entered thechurchyard, and stood by the little grave, which looked like a largenosegay of fragrant flowers. She sat down, and bent her head low overthe grave, as if she could see her child through the earth thatcovered him- her little boy, whose smile was so vividly before her,and the gentle expression of whose eyes, even on his sick-bed, shecould not forget. How full of meaning that glance had been, as sheleaned over him, holding in hers the pale hand which he had no longerstrength to raise! As she had sat by his little cot, so now she satby his grave; and here she could weep freely, and her tears fell uponit.
"Thou wouldst gladly go down and be with thy child," said avoice quite close to her,- a voice that sounded so deep and clear,that it went to her heart.
She looked up, and by her side stood a man wrapped in a blackcloak, with a hood closely drawn over his face; but her keen glancecould distinguish the face under the hood. It was stern, yetawakened confidence, and the eyes beamed with youthful radiance.
"Down to my child," she repeated; and tones of despair andentreaty sounded in the words.
"Darest thou to follow me?" asked the form. "I am Death."
She bowed her head in token of assent. Then suddenly it appearedas if all the stars were shining with the radiance of the full moon onthe many-colored flowers that decked the grave. The earth that coveredit was drawn back like a floating drapery. She sunk down, and thespectre covered her with a black cloak; night closed around her, thenight of death. She sank deeper than the spade of the sexton couldpenetrate, till the churchyard became a roof above her. Then the cloakwas removed, and she found herself in a large hall, ofwide-spreading dimensions, in which there was a subdued light, liketwilight, reigning, and in a moment her child appeared before her,smiling, and more beautiful than ever; with a silent cry she pressedhim to her heart. A glorious strain of music sounded- now distant, nownear. Never had she listened to such tones as these; they came frombeyond a large dark curtain which separated the regions of deathfrom the land of eternity.
"My sweet, darling mother," she heard the child say. It was thewell-known, beloved voice; and kiss followed kiss, in boundlessdelight. Then the child pointed to the dark curtain. "There is nothingso beautiful on earth as it is here. Mother, do you not see themall?