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THE NEW-YEAR'S NIGHT OF THE UNHAPPY.
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF JEAN PAUL RICHTER.
An old man stood in the New Year's midnight, at his window,
and looked with the eye of a long despair up to the immovable,
always blooming sky, and down on the still, pure white earth,
on which now there was no one so joyless and sleepless as he.
Then his grave drew near to him; it was only concealed by the
snow of age, not by the verdure of youth; and he had brought out
of the whole rich life nothing but the errors, sins and sickness, of
an enfeebled body, a desolated soul, a breast full of poisons, and
an old age full of remorse.
His beautiful youthful days came back to him to-day as spectres,
and led him far away back again to the fair morning, when his
father first set him out upon the highway of life, which, to the
right, leads upon the sun-path of virtue, into a wide and quiet land,
full of light and harvests, and full of angels; and which to the
left leads down into the mole-path of vice, into a black cavern,
full of dripping poisons, full of serpents ready to dart upon their
prey, and full of dismal, close exhalations. O! the serpents
hung around his breast, and the poison-drops to his tongue, and he
knew not where he was.
Beside himself, and with unspeakable grief, he cried out to
Heaven: “O, give me youth again! O, Father, set me out once
more upon the highway, that I may choose the other path!”
But his father and his youth were past long ago! He saw ignes
and he said, “They are my foolish days!”
He saw a star shoot from heaven, shimmer in its fall, and
vanish on the earth. “That is me!” said his bleeding heart,
and the serpent-fang of remorse dug deeper into the wounds.
His glowing imagination revealed to him tottering sleep-walkers
on the roof; the wind-mill raised its arms, threatening to crush
him; and a mask, which had been left in the empty charnel-house,
by degrees assumed his own features.
Suddenly, in the midst of the struggle, the music of the new
year flowed out of a tower near at hand, like the distant sound
of a church-anthem. His mind became calmer. He looked up
to the horizon, and out over the white earth; and he thought on
the friends of his youth, who, now happier and better than he,
were teachers on the earth, fathers of happy children, and blessed
of men, and he said, “O, I might also have slumbered, with
closed eyes, on this first night of the year, if I had willed it!
O, I might also have been happy, you dear parents, had I fulfilled
your New-Year's wishes and instructions!”
Amidst these feverish reminiscences of his youth, it appeared
to him as if the mask, with his features, stood up in the charnel-house;
and, at last, by means of that superstition which, on New-Year's
eve, sees ghosts and future events, it was changed into a
living youth.
He could look at it no more! He veiled his eyes; a thousand
hot tears streamed dissolving into the snow, and still he sighed,
but very low, beside himself, and grief-stricken, “Come again,
only once, O youth; come again!”
And it came again; for he had only dreamed so bitterly, in
wanderings were no dream. But he thanked God that he, still
young, could turn back from the dark track of vice, and set out
again upon the sunny path of virtue, which leads into the fair
land of harvests.
Turn with him, young reader, if thou standest on his path of
error! This fearful dream will some time become thy reality; but,
if once thou shalt cry, full of anguish, “Come back to me, beautiful
days of youth!” ah, they will come back never again!
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