In the garden all the apple-trees were in blossom. They had hastened to bring forth flowers before they got green leaves, and in the yard all the ducklings walked up and down, and the cat too: it basked in the sun and licked the sunshine from its own paws. And when one looked at the fields, how beautifully the corn stood and how green it shone! There was a twittering and a fluttering of all the little birds, as if the day were a great festival; and so it was, for it was Sunday. All the bells were ringing, and all the people went to church, looking cheerful. The day was so warm and beautiful that one might well have said: "God's kindness to us men is beyond all limits."
But inside the church the pastor stood in the pulpit, and spoke very loudly and angrily. He said that all men were wicked, and God would punish them for their sins, and that the wicked, when they died, would be cast into hell, to burn for ever and ever. He described hell as a miserable hole where all the refuse of the world gathers. It was dreadful to hear all that. Meanwhile, the birds sang merrily outside, and the sun was shining so beautifully warm.
The same evening, the pastor noticed his wife sitting quiet and pensive.
"What is the matter with you?" he asked.
"I cannot grasp the meaning of what you said today," she said. "That there are so many wicked people, and that they should burn eternally. Alas! How long! I should not have the heart to let even the worst sinner burn for ever, and how could our Lord do so, who is so infinitely good?"
It was autumn; the trees dropped their leaves. The pastor sat at the bedside of his dying wife. A pious, faithful soul closed her eyes forever.
She was buried; two large tears rolled over the cheeks of the earnest man.
It was night. A being stood before his bed, looking like the ghost of his deceased wife.
"Not even you can find eternal rest! You suffer?" the pastor asked.
The dead woman nodded and put her hand on her breast.
"And can I not obtain rest in the grave for you?"
"Yes," was the answer. "Give me one hair—only one single hair—from the head of the sinner for whom the fire shall never be extinguished."
"Follow me," said the dead woman. "We shall penetrate into their most secret chambers; but you must find him who is destined to eternal torture before the cock crows!"
As quickly as if carried by winged thoughts, they were in the great city. They stood before the magnificently illuminated gate of a grand house where Pride resided, seeing only a foolish footman. They flew into the wretched dwelling of the Miser, seeing a man ill with joyless madness. They came before the beds of criminals, witnessing violence, guilt, and inner torment.
They flew through rich halls and wretched hovels; all the deadly sins passed before them. An angel of justice read their crimes and their defence before God, Who reads the heart, Who is mercy and love personified.
The pastor's hand trembled; he dared not stretch it out to pull a hair from any sinner's head. And tears gushed from his eyes like a stream of mercy and love.
Just then the cock crowed.
"Father of all mercy, grant Thou to her the peace that I was unable to procure for her!"
"I have it now!" said the dead woman. "It was your hard words, your despair of mankind, which drove me to you. Learn to know mankind! Even in the wicked one lives a part of God—and this extinguishes the flame of hell!"
The pastor felt a kiss on his lips; God's bright sun shone into the room, and his wife, alive, sweet and full of love, awoke him from a dream.