At last the mother moves. Her eyes, which have been fixed upon the face of the sleeping child, glide to the window, through which a broad stream of moonlight is flooding the poor room. Quietly and cautiously, fearing lest she might awaken the child, with a throbbing heart she steps from the cradle and goes to the open window, through which not only the moonbeams, but also the balsamic fragrance of a summer night pour in, and leaning against the wall, she looks out through the window.
In the grayish silvery moonshine she sees a row of graves, crosses and trees, bushes and flowers, and the old wall, which the moonlight seems to give a faint hue of malachite.
From the dilapidated wall her eyes suddenly fall lower to that ominous bush of lilacs upon whose top and main bough and many branches, standing in the full light, the moonshine plays in manifold shades of molten silver. Yet even this glorified bush awakens gloomy, bitter reminiscences in the soul of the poor mother, the most bitter thoughts that ever stirred a mother’s soul; for it seems to her as though she saw before that bush the tall figure of a strong young man in the uniform of a foreign soldier, standing upright. His sunburnt face, full of vigor, shows traces of violent, indomitable passions, but is, nevertheless, manly and well-favored. The thick blond hair, the deep blue eyes, full lips, and an indescribable expression of haughty defiance make the face appear seemly. It has lived thus in the memory of the unfortunate mother for three years, and just now it rises before her mental sight with an unusual vividness, as clearly and plastically as when, from the same window that she is now looking through, she saw him for the first time, in the scorching heat of the sun, standing at the bush of lilacs under which gaped an open grave.
Her own father, old, sick unto death, had dug that grave on a fatal day. He was hardly able to crawl to the grave and back to the house. He fell at the threshold of the cottage; and the daughter, his only child, wept for hours at the bed of her dying father.
And just in the moment of her greatest distress the first reports of guns were heard in the neighborhood of the cemetery. The enemy had broken in through the mountain passes, advanced, and
