“Our country is so proud of me that she lets me die on her doorstep rather than open to me.”
The young diplomatist asked him to explain the situation, and, a few days later, he came to see Christophe, and said:
“People in high places are interested in you. A very great personage who alone has the power to suspend the consequence of the sentence which is the cause of your wretchedness has been informed of your position: and he deigns to be touched by it. I don’t know how it is that your music can have given him any pleasure: for—(between ourselves)—his taste is not very good: but he is intelligent, and he has a generous heart. Though he cannot, for the moment, remove the sentence passed upon you, the police are willing to shut their eyes, if you care to spend forty-eight hours in your native town to see your family once more. Here is a passport. You must have it endorsed when you arrive and when you leave. Be wary, and do not attract attention to yourself.”
Once more Christophe saw his native land. He spent the two days which had been granted him in communion with the earth and those who were beneath it. He visited his mother’s grave. The grass was growing over it: but flowers had lately been laid on it. His father and grandfather slept side by side. He sat at their feet. Their grave lay beneath the wall of the cemetery. It was shaded by a chestnut-tree growing in the sunken road on the other side of the low wall, over which he could see the golden crops, softly waving in the warm wind: the sun was shining in his majesty over the drowsy earth: he could hear the cry of the quails in the corn, and the soft murmuring of the cypress-trees above the graves. Christophe was alone with his dreams. His heart was at peace. He sat there with his hands clasping his knees, and his back against the wall, gazing up at the sky. He closed his eyes for a moment. How simple everything was! He felt at home here with his own people. He stayed there near them, as it were hand in hand. The hours slipped by. Towards evening he heard footsteps scrunching on the gravel paths. The custodian passed by and looked at Christophe sitting there. Christophe asked him who had laid the flowers on the grave. The man answered that the farmer’s wife from Buir came once or twice a year.
“Lorchen?” said Christophe.
They began to talk.
“You are her son?” said the man.
“She had three,” said Christophe.
“I mean the one at Hamburg. The other two turned out badly.”
Christophe sat still with his head thrown back a little, and said nothing. The sun was setting.
“I’m going to lock up,” said the custodian.
Christophe got up and walked slowly round the cemetery with him. The custodian did the honors of the place. Christophe stopped every now and then to read the names carved on the gravestones. How many of those he knew were of that company! Old Euler—his son-in-law—and farther off, the comrades of his childhood, little girls with whom he had played—and there, a name which stirred his heart: Ada. … Peace be with all of them. …
The fiery rays of the setting sun put a girdle round the calm horizon. Christophe left the cemetery. He went for a long walk through the fields. The stars were peeping. …
Next day he came again, and once more spent the afternoon at his vigil. But the fair silent calm of the day before was broken and thrilling with life. His heart sang a careless, happy hymn. He sat on the curb of the grave, and set down the song he heard in pencil in a notebook resting on his knees. So the day passed. It seemed to him that he was working in his old little room, and that his mother was there on the other side of the partition. When he had finished and was ready to go—he had moved a little away from the grave—he changed his mind and returned, and buried the notebook in the grass under the ivy. A few drops of rain were beginning to fall. Christophe thought:
“It will soon be blotted out. So much the better! … For you alone. For nobody else.”
And he went to see the river once more, and the familiar streets where so many things were changed. By the gates of the town along the promenade of the old fortifications a little wood of acacia-trees which he had seen planted had overrun the place, and they were stifling the old trees. As he passed along the wall surrounding the Von Kerichs’ garden, he recognized the post on which he used to climb when he was a little boy, to look over into the grounds: and he was surprised to see how small the tree, the wall, and the garden had become. He stopped for a moment before the front gateway. He was going on when a carriage passed him. Mechanically he raised his eyes: and they met those of a young lady, fresh, plump, happy-looking, who stared at him with a puzzled expression. She gave an exclamation of surprise. She ordered the carriage to stop, and said:
“Herr Krafft!”
He stopped.
She said laughingly:
“Minna. …”
He ran to her almost as nervous as he had been on the day when he first met her.8
She was with a tall, stout, bald gentleman, with mustachios brushed up belligerently, whom she introduced as “Herr Reichsgerichtsrat von Brombach”—her husband. She wanted Christophe to go home with her. He tried to excuse himself. But Minna exclaimed:
“No, no. You must come; come and dine with us.”
She spoke very loud and very quickly, and, without
