I promised him with passionate tears. Boy as I was, I could not help feeling the greatness of soul shown by this man, who, even when he was dying, had time to think of doing good to others.
"You are crying, foolish child," he said, gently. "You should not do so. Have I not often been face to face with death before? And, believe me, death is not terrible--he comes as a friend and comforter to man. It is true that I should have liked to have lived a little longer, and to have gone on with the work I had undertaken; but God, who rules our lives, has willed that it should not be so. His will be done!..."
He pushed my hair back from my forehead, and placing his hand on my head in blessing, added:
"Good-by, my child! good-by! and ... may you be happier than your teacher!"
The last words were said so low that I could scarcely hear them.
One beautiful bright spring morning his attendant found him dead, with a smile upon his lips.
Gräfin Jadwiga is still alive, and is still a beautiful woman. Who can tell whether she is happy, or whether, at the bottom of her heart, there is not a sad remembrance of the man whom she had really loved after her own fashion?
She painted the picture of Christ--that strange product of religious enthusiasm and human love--in Switzerland during the summer that succeeded David Blum's death. The art she had once followed as an amusement now, perhaps, brought her comfort; and the picture also showed that she had understood the nobility and greatness of the self-sacrifice made by the Jew for her sake and his own.
This is the story of the picture of Christ at Barnow. It is strange and sad, as I said before; but do not blame me for that, for my heart bleeds when I remember this over-true tale, which must be regarded as one of the dark riddles of life, and as the doing of that eternal, inscrutable Power that deals out darkness or light, happiness or misery, to the weak human heart....
The last time that I went there was on a beautiful, still autumn day. The sunshine was brightening the landscape, and the only sound to be heard was the faint crackling of the withered leaves on the bushes by the wayside. I followed the winding path that ran through the fields and gardens. I was alone, but I knew the place so well that I did not need to ask my way; for I always go there when I revisit my old home, and every year I become more attached to it. Every year the number of acquaintances to whom it leads me grows more numerous; indeed, the day will soon come when none of them will be found in the little town, for all will be there....