Gotthold made a gesture like one who holds out his hand in reconciliation. "Let us have peace now," he repeated. A little bird, which had perched for a moment in one of the openings above the window, twittered so loudly that the sweet clear tones filled the silent empty church. "I will take it as an answer," said Gotthold. He left the building as slowly as he had entered it, and went down the broad path in the churchyard to a spot where, at a large iron cross, which also bore the inscription, "Blessed are those who die in the Lord," a narrow walk branched off towards the wall. Scarcely anything had been altered in this older portion of the cemetery; he still remembered every mound, every cross, every stone, and every epitaph; there at last was what he was seeking--the grave with the low wooden railing, the stunted weeping willow, the little slanting cross, neglected as ever, or perhaps even more so--his mother's grave. He had lost her so very young, when he was only four or five years old, that he had scarcely the faintest shadow of personal remembrance; he had never seen a picture of her, and his father only mentioned her name when he said angrily: "You are just like your mother," yet perhaps for this very reason his fancy had always busied itself very frequently with this dead mother, who had been like him, and would certainly have loved him as he loved her dear shadow, until it almost assumed a bodily form. A dear, dream-like form, which came unbidden, and disappeared when he would so gladly have detained it longer. He plucked a few leaves from the willow, but scattered them over the grave again. "We need no mementos," he said; "we understand each other without any outward tokens, and it shall remain as it is, decay silently and gradually, as time wills. Who would be benefited by the most superb monument I could order from Thorwaldsen's master hand? Not you--what do the shades in Nirwana care for such earthly vanities--and not I. I shall never stand upon this spot again, and to others the stone would be only a stone. No, it is better so; it is in harmony with the place." He looked up, and his artist's eye wandered over the graves, upon whose long grass, swaying in the soft breeze, the setting sun scattered rosy hues, to the ancient church, whose rude square tower still glowed in the purple light, while the main building was already in deep shadow. "This scene and hour would make a beautiful picture," said Gotthold, "but I shall not paint it. That would efface it from my mind, and I wish to hold it fast there forever."