It is true I had always loved my mother, even
in my most heedless days; but I felt how inconsiderate and ineffectual
had been my love. My heart melted as I retraced the days of infancy,
when I was led by a mother's hand, and rocked to sleep in a mother's
arms, and was without care or sorrow. "O my mother!" exclaimed I,
burying my face again in the grass of the grave, "O that I were once
more by your side; sleeping never to wake again on the cares and
troubles of this world."
I am not naturally of a morbid temperament, and the violence of my
emotion gradually exhausted itself. It was a hearty, honest, natural
discharge of grief which had been slowly accumulating, and gave me
wonderful relief. I rose from the grave as if I had been offering up a
sacrifice, and I felt as if that sacrifice had been accepted.
I sat down again on the grass, and plucked one by one the weeds from her
grave: the tears trickled more slowly down my cheeks, and ceased to be
bitter. It was a comfort to think that she had died before sorrow
and poverty came upon her child, and all his great expectations were
blasted.
I leaned my cheek upon my hand, and looked upon the landscape. Its quiet
beauty soothed me. The whistle of a peasant from an adjoining field came
cheerily to my ear.
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