Page - 164 - in The Forest Farm - Tales of the Austrian Tyrol

I would have kept on standing by the bier, if the people had not been there, so that I might look at my mother. I read my childhood and my youth in her features. I thought that the bright eyes must open once more and smile to me, that the word must once more come from those lips which, in her loving- kindness, had been so soft and tender. But, though I was her dear son and however long I might stand beside her—she now slept the eternal sleep. I went into the low-ceilinged kitchen, where the neighbours’ wives were cooking the funeral meal; I looked round in the smoke for my brothers and sisters, that I might comfort them. Inside, in the parlour, all were now as still as mice and in great tension. Mathias, the old chamois-hunter, who wore a brown shirt and a white beard, sat at the table and told a story: “There was once a farmer,” he began, “who had a wife, just a poor sick wife. And, one day, one holy Easter morning, the wife died. The soul departed from her body and stood there all alone in dark Eternity. No angel was willing to come and lead her and show her in to the heavenly Paradise. ‘They are celebrating Christ’s resurrection in Heaven’—so the story ran—‘and, at such times, no saint or angel has time to show a poor soul the way.’ But the poor soul was in inexpressible fear and terror, for she reflected that, because of her illness, it was long since she had been to church. And she already heard the devil whining and whimpering and whistling and she thought that she was lost. ‘O my holy guardian angel and patron saint!’ she cried. ‘Come to my help in this my need, or I must depart into hell-fire!’ But they were all in Heaven together, celebrating Our Lord’s resurrection. Thereupon the poor woman was nigh to fainting away, without comfort or support; but suddenly Our Lady stood by her side, draped in a snow-white garment with a wreath of roses as a beautiful ornament in her hand. ‘Hail to thee and comfort, thou poor woman!’ she said, gently, to the departed soul. ‘Thou hast been a pious sufferer all thy life long and every Saturday thou hast fasted, for my sake, and what thou hadst left over through the fasting thou hast given to the poor, for my sake. This I will never forget to thee; and, though my dear Son is commemorating His glorious resurrection this day, yet will I think of thee and carry thee to His golden throne and to thy joyful place in the rose-garden by the angels, which I have prepared for thy sake and where thou canst wait for thy husband and thy children.’ And then Our Lady took the poor woman by the hand and carried her up to Heaven. That is why I say that fasting and alms-giving in honour of Our Lady are a right good work.” So spake Mathias in his brown shirt. “Our dear woodman’s wife, whom we are burying to-morrow, was also fond of fasting,” said one little woman, “and very fond of giving.”