The family retired to rest as the day approached, but rose in a few hours afterwards without having slept; and the remainder of that day, and the whole of the three following, were devoted to applications at every door where encouragement might be expected, or employment obtained, the priest in person aiding every application. But there were many circumstances unfavourable to the ill-starred family of Walberg. They were strangers, and, with the exception of their mother, who acted as interpreter, ignorant of the language of the country. This was “a sore evil,” extending almost to the total preclusion of their exertions as teachers. They were also heretics—and this alone was a sufficient bar to their success in Seville. In some families the beauty of the daughters, in others that of the son, was gravely debated as an important objection. In others the recollection of their former splendour, suggested a mean and rancorous motive to jealous inferiority to insult them by a rejection, for which no other cause could be assigned. Unwearied and undismayed, they renewed their applications every day, at every house where admission could be obtained, and at many where it was denied; and each day they returned to examine the diminished stock, to divide the scantier meal, calculate how far it was possible to reduce the claims of nature to the level of their ebbing means, and smile when they talked of the morrow to each other, but weep when they thought of it alone. 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 stupefied silence together for some hours, till the aged mother of Walberg, who had not for some months uttered anything but indistinct monosyllables, or appeared conscious of anything 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 today 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, señor,” 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 enclosure, at the rear of their wretched abode, her son dug his mother’s grave, and Ines and her daughters placed the body in
