Page:Ernestus Berchtold or the Modern Œdipus.djvu/19

 father and mother were dead. Retreating from him, I started, and trembling, asked him if he were then dead? He did not at first understand me; but upon my calling him by the name of father, he remembered that I had never heard the history of my birth. He took me to his breast, and weeping, told me, that I was indeed an orphan, that I was not his child. He then took me to the church-yard, and pointing to the raised sod, he told me my parents were there. I did not clearly understand him. I had then no idea of death; my mother, for so l called his sister, had told me tales of the dead, but these terrified without being understood. All the graves, save those of my parents, were adorned with flowers; upon my remarking this to him, he told me that they having died strangers there, none were bound to love them. I was hurt to see those flowers, which though faded, showed the attention of some living being, refused to my mother’s tomb; it sunk deeply on my