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Page 47
What a movement suddenly takes place in the room! The old
gentleman heaves himself up from the sofa--the person with one ear
starts forward, and in so doing, gives the young lady a blow (the
dromedary!) which makes her knock against the tea-table, whereby
the poor lady, who was just about springing up from the sofa, is
pushed down again--the children hop about and clap their hands--
the door flies open--a young officer enters--the young girl throws
herself into his arms. So, indeed! Aha, now we have it! I put to
my shutters so violently that they cracked, and seated myself on a
chair, quite wet through with rain, and with my knees trembling.
What had I to do at the window? That is what one gets when one is
inquisitive.
Eight days ago, this family had removed from the country into the
handsome house opposite to me; and it had never yet occurred to me
to ask who they were, or whence they came. What need was there for
me to-night to make myself acquainted with their domestic concerns
in an illicit manner? How could it interest me? I was in an ill-humor;
perhaps, too, I felt some little heartache. But for all that, true
to my resolution, not to give myself up to anxious thoughts when they
could do no good, I seized the pen with stiff fingers, and, in order
to dissipate my vexation, wished to attempt a description of domestic
happiness, of a happiness which I had never enjoyed. For the rest, I
philosophized whilst I blew upon my stiffened hands. "Am I the first
who, in the hot hour of fancy, has sought for a warmth which the stern
world of reality has denied him? Six dollars for a measure of fir-wood.
Yes, prosit, thou art not likely to get it before December! I write!
"Happy, threefold happy, the family, in whose narrow, contracted
circle no heart bleeds solitarily, or solitarily rejoices! No
look, no smile, remains unanswered; and where the friends say
daily, not with words but with deeds, to each other, 'Thy cares,
thy joys, thy happiness, are mine also!'"
"Lovely is the peaceful, the quiet home, which closes itself
protectingly around the weary pilgrim through life--which, around
its friendly blazing hearth, assembles for repose the old man
leaning on his staff, the strong man, the affectionate wife, and
happy children, who, shouting and exulting, hop about in their
earthly heaven, and closing a day spent in the pastimes of
innocence, repeat a thanksgiving prayer with smiling lips, and
drop asleep on the bosom of their parents, whilst the gentle voice
of the mother tells them, in whispered cradle-tones, how around
their couch--
"The little angels in a ring,
Stand round about to keep
A watchful guard upon the bed
Where little children sleep."
Here I was obliged to leave off, because I felt something
resembling a drop of rain come forth from my eye, and therefore
could not any longer see clearly.
"How many," thought I, as my reflections, against my will, took a
melancholy turn--"how many are there who must, to their sorrow, do
without this highest happiness of earthly life--domestic
happiness!"
For one moment I contemplated myself in the only whole glass which
I had in my room--that OF TRUTH,--and then wrote again with gloomy
feeling:--"Unhappy, indeed, may the forlorn one be called, who, in
the anxious and cool moments of life (which, indeed, come so
often), is pressed to no faithful heart, whose sigh nobody
returns, whose quiet grief nobody alleviates with a 'I understand
thee, I suffer with thee!'
"He is cast down, nobody raises him up; he weeps, nobody sees it,
nobody will see it; he goes, nobody follows him; he comes, nobody
goes to meet him; he rests, nobody watches over him. He is lonely.
Oh, how unfortunate he is! Why dies he not? Ah, who would weep for
him? How cold is a grave which no warm tears of love moisten!
"He is lonesome in the winter night; for him the earth has no
flowers, and dark burn the lights of heaven. Why wanders he, the
lonesome one; why waits he; why flies he not, the shadow, to the
land of shades? Ah, he still hopes, he is a mendicant who begs for
joy, who yet waits in the eleventh hour, that a merciful hand may
give him an alms.
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