Christian Gellerts Last Christmas | Page 5

profession is one in which I can't be of any use to him."
"Well, just seek him out and speak with him once; you are going to-day,
you know, with your wood to Leipzig. Seek him out and thank him;
that sort of thing does such a man's heart good. Anybody can see him."
"Yes, yes; I should like much to see him, and hold out to him my
hand,--but not empty: I wish I had something!"
"Speak to your brother, and get him to give you a note to him."
"No, no; say nothing to my brother; but it might be possible for me to
meet him in the street. Give me my Sunday coat; it will come to no
harm under my cloak."
When his wife brought him the coat, she said: "If, now, Gellert had a
wife, or a household of his own, one might send him something; but
your brother says he is a bachelor, and lives quite alone."
Christopher had never before so cheerfully harnessed his horses and put
them to his wood-laden wagon; for a long while he had not given his
hand so gayly to his wife at parting as to-day. Now he started with his
heavily-laden vehicle through the village; the wheels creaked and
crackled in the snow. At the parsonage he stopped, and looked away
yonder where his brother was still sleeping; he thought he would wake
him and tell him his intention: but suddenly he whipped up his horses,
and continued his route. He would n't yet bind himself to his
intention--perchance it was but a passing thought; he does n't own that
to himself, but he says to himself that he will surprise his brother with
the news of what he has done; and then his thoughts wandered away to

the good man still sleeping yonder in the city; and he hummed the
verse to himself in an old familiar tune.
Wonderfully in life do effects manifest them-selves, of which we have
no trace. Gellert, too, heard in his dreams a singing; he knew not what
it was, but it rang so consolingly, so joyously!... Christopher drove on,
and he felt as though a bandage had been taken from his eyes; he
reflected what a nice house, what a bonny wife and rosy children he
had, and how warm the cloak which he had thrown over him was, and
how well off were both man and beast; and through the still night he
drove along, and beside him sat a spirit; but not an illusion of the brain,
such as in olden time men conjured up to their terror, a good spirit sat
beside him--beside the woodman who his whole life long had never
believed that anything could have power over him but what had hands
and feet.
It is said that, on troublous nights, evil spirits settle upon the necks of
men, and belabor them so that they gasp and sweat for very terror; quite
another sort it was to-day which sat by the woodman: and his heart was
warm, and its beating quick.
In ancient times, men also carried loads of wood through the night, that
heretics might be burned thereon: these men thought they were doing a
good deed in helping to execute justice; and who can say how painful it
was to their hearts, when they were forced to think: To morrow, on this
wood which now you carry, will shriek, and crackle, and gasp, a human
being like yourself? Who can tell what black spirits settled on the necks
of those who bore the wood to make the funeral-pile? How very
different was it to-day with our woodman Christopher!
And earlier still, in ancient times, men brought wood to the temple,
whereon they offered victims in the honor of God; and, according to
their notions, they did a good deed: for when words can no longer
suffice to express the fervency of the heart, it gladly offers what it
prizes, what it dearly loves, as a proof of its devotion, of the
earnestness of its intent.
How differently went Christopher from the Duben Forest upon his way!

He knew not whether he were intending to bring a purer offering than
men had brought in bygone ages; but his heart grew warm within him.
It was day as he arrived before the gates of Leipzig. Here there met him
a funeral-procession; behind the bier the scholars of St. Thomas, in
long black cloaks, were chanting. Christopher stopped and raised his
hat. Whom were they burying? Supposing it were Gellert. Yes, surely,
he thought, it is he: and how gladly, said he to himself, would you now
have done him a kindness,--ay, even given him your wood! Yes, indeed
you would, and now he is dead, and you