u, my
worthy father, you may now well say with Simeon, 'Lord, now lettest thou
thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen the savior of this
house.'"

He was now in full swing toward a brilliant peroration, when he
perceived the old man to whom he held out the child, first appear a
little to incline toward it, and immediately after to totter and sink
backward. Hardly prevented from falling, he was lifted to a seat; but,
notwithstanding the instant assistance which was rendered, he was found
to be dead.

To see thus side by side birth and death, the coffin and the cradle, to
see them and to realize them, to comprehend not with the eye of
imagination, but with the bodily eye, at one moment these fearful
opposites, was a hard trial to the spectators; the harder, the more
utterly it had taken them by surprise. Ottilie alone stood contemplating
the slumberer, whose features still retained their gentle sweet
expression, with a kind of envy. The life of her soul was killed; why
should the bodily life any longer drag on in weariness?

But though Ottilie was frequently led by melancholy incidents which
occurred in the day to thoughts of the past, of separation and of loss,
at night she had strange visions given her to comfort her, which assured
her of the existence of her beloved, and thus strengthened her, and gave
her life for her own. When she laid herself down at night to rest, and
was floating among sweet sensations between sleep and waking, she seemed
to be looking into a clear but softly illuminated space. In this she
would see Edward with the greatest distinctness, and not in the dress in
which she had been accustomed to see him, but in military uniform;
never in the same position, but always in a natural one, and not the
least with anything fantastic about him, either standing or walking, or
lying down or riding. The figure, which was painted with the utmost
minuteness, moved readily before her without any effort of hers, without
her willing it or exerting her imagination to produce it. Frequently she
saw him surrounded with something in motion, which was darker than the
bright ground; but the figures were shadowy, and she could scarcely
distinguish them--sometimes they were like men, sometimes they were like
horses, or like trees, or like mountains. She usually went to sleep in
the midst of the apparition, and when, after a quiet night, she woke
again in the morning, she felt refreshed and comforted; she c