University of Virginia Library

THE DYING HUSBAND.

BY WILL. WILLOWILL.

Your husband, while yet young, begins to fade and wither
like the rich fig-tree on whose boughs the hot air of Etna's
lungs has been fiercely breathed. You see him helpless on
the snowy couch your own hands have smoothed a hundred
times, and he is writhing with strong pain. When he
looks on you with his red, fiery eyes, he laughs satirically,
and hisses you from his presence, saying you are a stranger.

Your physician comes again, and you bid your failing
heart hope afresh, against the evil to come, through the
man of the healing drugs and elaborate skill.

He ministers unto his wants, but your husband grows
wilder and worse. A tear fills your eye—both of them,
until the white curtains about the bed look dim, and just as
you never saw them before. Your eye is so full of a big
tear, that burns you so hotly that nothing looks natural to
you, not even your sleeping baby in its crib; and a strange
wildness whirls through your bewildered brain, until you
wish in your soul you were resting beside your mother in
the churchyard.

Your husband grows constantly worse; a wilder glare
lights up his distorted countenance; new features arrange
themselves, one by one, until you can scarcely believe it is
the husband of your youth whom you loved like a wife.

The attendants walk stealthily around the couch on silent
tiptoe, as if fearful of startling the spirits that you feel certain

must be whirling in invisible circles through the mysterious
room.

You hear a vague, indistinct whisper, passing one from
another, and you wonder at its meaning.

The tall candle, on the little stand your mother gave you,
burns brightly enough, but a dim, mist-like halo surrounds it,
so full is your eye with big tears, and so flooded your lashes
with its waters.

You try to read the thought of your physician, who stands
gravely at the head of the couch, with his hand on your
husband's brow, that you know must be throbbing with pain.

You bend over your husband, to see if he will not recognize
you, but he does not, and a glassy film is gathering its
cold cloud in his eye.

Your ear catches the whisper of your physician, and it
brings you tidings of terror. For a moment, or more, you
forget your being. The physician has said, “He is passing
away?”

And the husband you loved so wildly, like a faithful wife,
has grown, ere you thought it, cold as ice, and you scream
when you lay your hand on his cold brow, that is damp
with the death-dew, and you wish in your soul that you
too were dead, that you might rest with him and your
mother where the cypress and the yew tree wave their
sleepy branches.

And a motherly-like old lady, with her soft gray hair
nicely braided under a delicate snowy cap, your good old
aunt, acts like a mother towards you now, and takes you
by the hand, leading you weeping away. And she sits down
with you, away in another part of the house, with your hand
in hers, and tries to console and comfort you with kind words,
and tells you to hope your husband is in heaven. And vou

wonder how your aunt can talk so strangely about comfort
for you refuse to be comforted, like Rachel, because your
husband is not.

And you hear the busy shuffle of many feet on the floor—
the comers and goers. You wonder why such goeth on in
your house; your aunt anticipates your thoughts, and she
whispers solemnly, “They are preparing to put him away!”

Your aunt, who has become your protectress, asks you if
you want to see him again, and you arise to follow her,
leaning on her arm. She leads you to the death-chamber,
and the attendants give way on either side to let you pass.
A nicely polished coffin sits by the bed where your husband
died; the coffin is polished until it shines like glass, and its
fragrant varnish fills the room. And the undertaker is there,
gliding around the coffin as quiet as you could wish, feeling
proud in his heart of the nice coffin his skill has polished
for your husband to rest in. He cautiously brushes the
little motes of dust from the shining boards, and you feel
grateful towards him because he is so nice, and his solemn
face tells you he deeply sympathizes with your sorrow.

And your husband is straitened and stiff in the narrow
coffin, shrouded with clean white linen, that rustles like dry
leaves in the autumn wind, as your aunt lays back the
folds that conceal your husband's cold, pallid face, and his
lifeless, glassy eyes.

And your soul grows full of bitter anguish as you gaze
through your helpless tears, and your aunt leads you, weeping
as you are, away from the sad, sad spectacle, while you
wish in your soul that you too were dead.

And they lead you to a new-made grave among the same
tombs in the old churchyard where you wandered when you
were a little girl, reading the inscriptions on the grave-stones,xs

scarce knowing what they meant. And you stand above the
new grave that is yet tenantless, and, like Esau, with tears in
your eyes, you weep painfully until your poor heart grows so
heavy that you feel sure your bosom will burst.

And you see strong men ease the smooth, varnished coffin,
with its tenant, in its narrow home into the earth, and you
follow it with your eyes down, down to where it rests, and
your tears go with it!

And you kneel there, near the spot where your kind mother
has been sleeping for years in death's embrace, and you weep
as you never wept before, and wish in your soul that you too
might die and be with them. If in this terrible moment, when
the heart struggles, should there come upon you like the rushing
of a mighty wind this sad reflection to your sorrowing soul:
By my influence the cup of Death and Drunkenness was
pressed to his lips; but for me he might have lived the joy and
comfort of his house!

Sister! Sister, if this be thy reward how the deep, damp
grave beneath the yew-tree will reprove thee! How the hollow,
dismal knock of the valley clod on the smooth coffir.
boards as it greets its brother dust, and calls the little worm
to its filthy feast, will echo the shrieking cry of Remorse!
Remorse!! in the aching chambers of thy wretched heart!
Remorse will seize you as the strong eagle does its prey.
Remorse! oh, remorse! Can you paraphrase the terrible
word? The great Randolph of Roanoke could not, and can
you—YOU?