SORROW wanted to rest, so one hot midsummer's day she climbed lightly into the high mountains, amid the ancient forests, high, high up, into the region of quiet, solemn solitude. Only here and there a streamlet trickled, or a dry branch that lay upon the thick moss broke under her footsteps. From time to time the leaves swayed, as though the trees breathed; then a sunbeam would creep through and slide across the fallen mossy giant trunks upon which younger life was disporting; little firs and beeches, strawberries and ants in dense confusion. Of a sudden there was an opening, and Sorrow found herself stepping upon a narrow path, beneath towering rocks, at her feet a yawning precipice. After a while the space grew a little wider, and she came to a tiny house attached to the rock like to an eagle's eyrie. Beside it, in a niche cut in the living rock, sat a man with long white beard, leaning on his stick, and staring with somber dark eyes down into the valleys that opened out from all sides.

As far as the eye could reach there was only mountain and forest. Two eagles hovered almost immovable in the trembling summer air, and then flew after each other in slow circles.

"I am weary," said Sorrow, and seated herself in the thyme at the feet of the hermit, who looked at her slowly from top to toe.

"Is that all that you bring?" he asked, grimly. "You had promised you would sometime bring me Rest, but I see no one."

"I think she is coming after me," said Sorrow, dreamily; "the forest is getting so quiet; but I will not let her come if you do not keep your promise to me and tell me your history."

Once again a somber look from out those black eyes was fixed on Sorrow; then they looked nervously, searchingly out into the wood; then the white beard trembled a little, and dull, muffled tones issued from the man's chest.

"The price is heavy, but Rest is sweet. In my youth I was poor and never looked at the girls, for I did not want to create misery about me, and I knew hunger and thirst too well to ask them of my own accord to dwell in my hut. I was strong as a lion, and industrious, so I slowly earned a good piece of bread and a house that I had almost built by myself. Then it occurred to me that, as youth was nearly past, I must make haste if I wanted to marry. I knew a lovely girl, with eyes like a deer, whom a youth in the village had long desired, but she had refused him several times, until at last he saw that she would have nothing to say to him. Then he had a mind to drown, but he thought better of it and went to foreign parts, and nothing more was heard of him. The same day I wooed Marie, and nearly fainted for joy when, in answer to my timid question, 'If I am not too old for you, I should like to have you to wife, will you be mine?' she answered with glad eyes, quite softly, 'Most willingly.' I believe that if one begins to love young, one does not know what such happiness means. But if one has been alone for years, and then comes home and there by the hearth stands a young, beautiful woman who laughs at one roguishly, it makes one hot about the heart and head, and one takes up one's happiness in one's arms and runs about with it like one demented. You even cavil with the wind if it blows on your wife, and you hardly like to suffer the sun to shine on her. Yes, I was quite beside myself with love and happiness; and when next year she presented me with a son, I really had to tear myself away to go to my work. And the child had just such eyes as hers, so beaming and merry. Soon it could stretch out its little hands and pull my beard, and then we laughed. Six years passed thus happily; every day the boy grew more beautiful and clever, and my Marie remained merry and young in our little house by the mountain. True I was passionate sometimes, but then she would always send me our boy and I grew quiet at once, for no one could look into his eyes and be angry, so angelic was that face with its golden curls.

"One day the rejected wooer returned to the village; we saw him as we went to church, and it gave me a pang to see that Marie grew pale and red and could not cease from looking at him. It is true that she laughed at me for this, and said that she was quite proud that I could even be jealous of the past.

"But I could not forget his look, and why had she grown red? All the villagers had noticed it and smiled, and as it was the younger men were jealous of me. Nor was there an end with this first meeting. He insisted on his old acquaintanceship and visited us often, and as he had nothing to do, he sometimes came when my wife was alone at home. I began to be vexed at this, especially since a horrid old woman, with a fair young girl, that was as like you as pea to pea, turned in at our house one day and warmed themselves by our fire. She let all sorts of words fall, about evil tongues, about an old man and a young wife and an ancient lover, and while she jabbered the girl looked at me piteously, like you look now—I can never forget that look. My wife was in the bedroom putting our boy to sleep, and as she was not there to cheer me with her dear presence, the poison sank deep into my heart. From that hour I grew irritable and passionate towards her, which made her lose her cheerful calmness and look nervous whenever the uninvited guest appeared. I wanted to show him the door, but she would not allow it, saying wisely: 'Do you want him to tell the whole village that you are jealous of him, and that you mistrust your wife?'

"How many bitter hours he cost us both! Whenever he had been I scolded Marie till far into the night. It was her fault; if she were not so pleasant to him he would certainly not come again. And I, who formerly would have let her tread on me, if that could spare her aught, could now look on coldly when she wept for hours. Her joyous laughter ceased, and she always looked at me terrified. I wanted that she too should feel some of the misery that gnawed at my heart, for was it not her fault? The bad old woman often came through the forest where I hewed down trees and said—

"'Go home, you will find him there.'

"And I did find him once or twice, and at last I said: 'Marie, if I find him once more, there will happen mischief; I forewarn you.'

"And yet again one evil day that old woman came tramping through the deep snow, and laughed maliciously and said—

"'Go home! go home!'

"I shouldered my ax and ran home. There stood my wife, and she was red and angry, and was scolding that man. He only laughed. I seized him by the breast and swung the ax over his head. Marie seized me by the arm and cried—

"'Think of your son. He shall not have a murderer for his father!'

"My arm sank. I ran out of the door, far into the wood. There lay the stems and trunks I had hewn down, a crust of ice covered the snow, beneath ran the path that my enemy must tread to return to the village. I stretched out my arm and began to arrange the blocks in such a manner that they would slowly roll down. One must hit him, I thought, and then he will be dead, and I shall be no murderer.

"At the first footsteps I heard below I threw the trunks down, and they followed thick as hail. I did not look down. Suddenly a cry that pierced my very marrow rang upon the air. It was the cry of a child. I grew dizzy. True I sprang with lightning speed to the spot whence the cry had come. There lay the golden curls of my boy pressed in the snow; out of his open mouth there trickled blood, and his deer-like eyes looked at me solemnly. I called him by name; I pressed him to me; I breathed into his mouth; in vain—he was dead, dead! I took him in my arms and bore him home; kicked open the door with my foot, and gave him to his mother with the words—

"'There you have your boy! The tree that was destined for your friend hit him.'

"She did not cry; she did not moan; she shed no tears; only her lips grew ashy. She held the boy for two days on her lap and spoke no word save a soft—

"'My child! my child!'

"It had to be taken from her forcibly to bury it. We did not speak again to one another. The friend had vanished, and the bad old woman, too, did not come again. Other people soon kept away, as I was so gruff and my wife so silent. So the days passed, and the weeks and the months. I might not enter her room. She begged me to leave her alone. I think she sat all night long beside the bed of the child and pressed kisses on his pillow. Day by day she faded. I did not notice it. It never occurred to me to send for a doctor. I wanted no human being to behold our misery.

"One evening she called me with a weak voice to her bedside, and said calmly—

"'To-night I must die, but before I do I want to confess myself to you. I have hated you since the hour you killed my joy, and much though I have struggled, and greatly though I desired to have pity on you, yet hate was stronger.'

"'The greater your love for that other,' I hissed forth.

"She raised her hand in oath.

"'Never; I was your faithful wife until the end. I thank you for all the happiness of those first years, and I forgive you the misery of the last. Kiss me, I love you once more.'

"For the first time I wept and craved her pardon for all I had done to her. She laid her hand once more on my brow, sighed a deep sigh, and was dead.

"Then I ran away into the mountains and could look at no human being. I wanted never to speak again, never to hear the sound of voices. I sought for Rest in the woods, in the rocks, with the eagles and bears, and yet I have not found her. My suffering is so great, I believe the very stars have pity on me. And old as I am, I cannot forget that I myself murdered my happiness."

The Hermit had done speaking. All the hot passions of his past life had been reflected by his features. Sorrow's eyes had looked at him fixedly, calmly, pityingly, sympathetically.

Now she beckoned towards the mountains behind which the sun was about to sink. On large broad pinions Rest came floating onwards, looked into the old man's eyes until they drooped, closed them with gentle hand, breathed over his rigid features till all traces of bitterness vanished thence, and the mouth, that was closed for ever, looked almost gentle. Sorrow had already vanished. She descended into the valley and wandered all night. For as often as she desired to turn the handle of a door, she drew it back, and thought of the Hermit and his fate.

[Pg 145-146]