TRANSLATED BY T. CARLYLE

At the sound of the morning prayer-bell, the bridegroom--for the din
of preparation was disturbing his quiet orison--went out into the
churchyard, which (as in many other places) together with the church,
lay round his mansion like a court. Here, on the moist green, over
whose closed flowers the churchyard wall was still spreading broad
shadows, did his spirit cool itself from the warm dreams of Earth:
here, where the white flat grave-stone of his Teacher lay before him
like the fallen-in door of the Janus-temple of life, or like the
windward side of the narrow house, turned toward the tempests of the
world: here, where the little shrunk metallic door on the grated cross
of his father uttered to him the inscriptions of death, and the year
when his parent departed, and all the admonitions and mementos, graven
on the lead--there, I say, his mood grew softer and more solemn; and
he now lifted up by heart his morning prayer, which usually he read,
and entreated God to bless him in his office, and to spare his
mother's life, and to look with favor and acceptance on the purpose of
today. Then, over the graves, he walked into his fenceless little
angular flower-garden; and here, composed and confident in the divine
keeping, he pressed the stalks of his tulips deeper into the mellow
earth.

But on returning to the house, he was met on all hands by the
bell-ringing and the Janizary-music of wedding-gladness; the
marriage-guests had all thrown off their nightcaps, and were drinking
diligently; there was a clattering, a cooking, a frizzling;
tea-services, coffee-services, and warm beer-services, were advancing
in succession; and plates full of bride-cakes were going round like
potter's frames or cistern-wheels. The Schoolmaster, with three young