Seite:Marsh Hallig 1856.djvu/125

125

REMORSE.

native island, and the stars of Heaven spoke of the
peaces of that home — all rose fresh in his memory, and
floated by him as pictures of a lost paradise. Why
might he not win again this paradise ? Why could he
not shake off the fetters with which his faithlessness
had bound him ? So he questioned himself ; and
Idalia's image could not for a moment lead back his
mind to its former bondage. Rather there arose in him
an intense desire to see once more Maria, his own
Maria.
  At midnight he left the chamber of the dead, went
softly out into the open air, and lo ! the stars seemed
to smile kindly down upon him, as if to bless his purpose.
He hastened rapidly forward, stepping over many a
grave, not to be detained by the circuitous direction of
the common path. Already in the distance there shone
toward him a friendly light from the longed-for house.
It did not strike him as any thing strange even at this
late hour. He thought it ought to be so ; she was
watching for him, she was guiding him by this light
back to his plighted vows. Hastily, but carefully avoid-
ing the slightest noise, he ascended the wharf. A pro-
jecting stone served as a step from which he could look
over the low half-shutter. There sat Maria by the bed-
side of her mother, her hands lying folded in her lap,
gazing upward with half-closed eyes as if in a dream.
Godber stood as it were rooted to the spot, holding his
breath within his heaving chest, his eyes fixed stead-
fastly on the young girl, who would have seemed to him,
if he could make comparisons at such a moment, like a
divine apparition contrasted with Idalia's earthly image.
  So he remained a long, long time.