contemptuous of Bartel Sperling, "the traveler," as he called himself,
and looked down upon us others because he had been to Vienna once and was
the only Eseldorf boy who had made such a journey and seen the world's
wonders. At another time that would have kept me awake, but it did not
affect me now. No, my mind was filled with Nikolaus, my thoughts ran
upon him only, and the good days we had seen together at romps and
frolics in the woods and the fields and the river in the long summer
days, and skating and sliding in the winter when our parents thought we
were in school. And now he was going out of this young life, and the
summers and winters would come and go, and we others would rove and play
as before, but his place would be vacant; we should see him no more.
To-morrow he would not suspect, but would be as he had always been, and
it would shock me to hear him laugh, and see him do lightsome and
frivolous things, for to me he would be a corpse, with waxen hands and
dull eyes, and I should see the shroud around his face; and next day he
would not suspect, nor the next, and all the time his handful of days
would be wasting swiftly away and that awful thing coming nearer and
nearer, his fate closing steadily around him and no one knowing it but
Seppi and me. Twelve days--only twelve days. It was awful to think of.
I noticed that in my thoughts I was not calling him by his familiar
names, Nick and Nicky, but was speaking of him by his full name, and
reverently, as one speaks of the dead. Also, as incident after incident
of our comradeship came thronging into my mind out of the past, I noticed
that they were mainly cases where I had wronged him or hurt him, and they
rebuked me and reproached me, and my heart was wrung with remorse, just
as it is when we remember our unkindnesses to friends who have passed
beyond the veil, and we wish we could have them back again, if only for a
moment, so that we could go on our knees to them and say, "Have pity, and
forgive."