Bertha von Suttner

The course of the Danish war.—Suspension of hostilities.—War renewed.—My husband ordered off just on the eve of my confinement.—The parting.—My confinement occurs simultaneously with my husband’s departure.—A dead child.—The mother in deadly peril.—Frederick’s letters from the seat of war.—Cousin Godfrey and the alliance between Austria and Prussia.—My recovery.—Anxiety and relapse.—Return of my husband.

FROM the theatre of war came good tidings. The allies won battle after battle. Immediately after the first combats the Danes were forced to abandon the entire Danewerk. Schleswig and Jutland up to Limfjord were occupied by our troops, and the enemy only maintained himself in the lines at DÜppel and at Alsen.

I knew all this so accurately, because on the tables were again laid the maps stuck about with pins on which were marked the movements and positions of the troops as each despatch arrived. “If we could now only take the lines at DÜppel, or if we could even conquer Alsen,” said the citizens of OlmÜtz (for no one is so fond of speaking of deeds of war with the “we” as those who were never present at them), “then we should be at an end of it. Now our Austrians are showing again what they can do. The brave Prussians too are fighting splendidly. Both together are of course invincible. The end will be that all Denmark will be overrun and will be annexed to the German Bund—a glorious, beneficent war.”

I too wished for nothing so anxiously as the storming of DÜppel—the sooner, the better—for this action would at any rate be decisive and put an end to the butchery. Put an end to it, I hoped, before Frederick’s regiment got marching orders.

Oh, this Damocles’ sword! Every day when I woke the fear came on me that the news would be brought “We are to march”. Frederick was calm about it. He did not wish it, but saw it coming.

“Accustom yourself, dear, to the thought of it,” he said to me. “Against inexorable necessity no striving is of any avail. I do not believe that even if DÜppel falls the war will thereby terminate. The allied army which has been despatched is far too small to force the Danes to a conclusion; we shall be obliged to send considerable reinforcements besides, and then my regiment will not be spared.”

In fact, this campaign had lasted more than two months, and yet no result. If the cruel game could have been settled in one fight like a duel! But no; if one battle is lost, another is offered; if one position has to be given up, another is taken, and so on till one or the other army is annihilated, or both are exhausted.

At last, on 14th April, the lines of DÜppel were stormed.

The news was received with such a shout of joy as if the recovered paradise had lain behind these lines. People embraced each other in the streets. “Don’t you know? DÜppel—Oh, our brave army! An unheard-of exploit. Now let all join in thanking God!” And there was singing of Te Deums in all the churches, and among the military choirmasters an industrious composition of “The Lines of DÜppel March,” “Storm of DÜppel Galop,” and so forth.

My husband’s comrades and their wives had, it is true, a drop of bitterness in their cup of joy, not to have been there, to have been obliged to miss such a triumph; what bad luck!

This victory gave me one great joy, for immediately after it a peace conference assembled in London and occasioned a suspension of hostilities. What a recovery of free breath even that word “suspension of hostilities” caused.

How the world would at last breathe again, thought I then for the first time, if on all hands could be heard: “Lay down your arms,” down with them for ever! I put the words into my red book, but beside them I wrote despondingly in brackets “Utopia”.

That the London Congress would make an end of the Schleswig-Holstein War I made no doubt at all. The allies had won, the lines of DÜppel were carried, these lines had played so great a part in recent times that their capture seemed to me to be finally decisive: how could Denmark hold out longer? The negotiations dragged on for an incredible length of time. This would have been torture to me if I had not from the very beginning had the conviction that their result must be peaceful. If the plenipotentiaries of great states, who therefore must be reasonable, well-meaning persons, unite together to attain so desirable an end as the conclusion of peace, how could it fail? So much the more horribly was I undeceived when after debates continued for two months the news came that the congress had dissolved without accomplishing anything.

And two days later came marching orders for Frederick!

For preparations and for leave-taking he had twenty-four hours given him. And I was on the point of my confinement. In the heavy death-menacing hours, when a woman’s only comfort lies in having her dear husband by her, I had to remain alone, alone with that consciousness awful beyond everything that this dear husband was gone to the war—knowing too that it must be just as painful to him to leave his poor wife at such a moment as it would be painful to me to be without him.

It was in the morning of 20th June. All the details of this memorable day remain impressed on my memory. Oppressive heat prevailed outside, and to shut this out the Venetian blinds had been let down in my room. Covered with light, loose clothing, I was lying exhausted on the sofa. I had passed an almost sleepless night, and had now shut my eyes in a dreamy half-doze. Near me on my table was standing a vase with some powerfully smelling roses. Through the open window the sound of a distant exercise in trumpet-playing came in. Everything was provocative of slumber, yet consciousness had not quite left me. Only one half of it—I mean that of care—had departed. I had forgotten the danger of war and the danger that stood before myself. I knew only that I was alive—that the roses, along with the rhythm of the reveillÉ which the trumpeter was playing, were giving out sweet soothing influences—that my beloved husband might come in at any minute, and if he saw me asleep would only tread in the lightest manner so as not to awaken me. I was right; next minute the door opposite to me opened. Without raising my lids I could see through a tiny cleft between the eyelashes that it was he whom I was expecting. I made no attempt to rouse myself from my half-slumber, for by doing so I might chase away the whole picture; for it might be that the appearance at the door was only the continuation of a dream, and it might be that I was only dreaming that I had opened my eyelids ever so little. So now I shut them entirely and took pains to continue the dream—that the dear one came closer, that he bent over me and kissed my forehead.

And so indeed it was. Then he knelt down by my couch and remained motionless for a while. The roses were still breathing and the distant horn playing its tra-ra-ra.

“Martha, are you asleep?” I heard him ask softly.

Then I opened my eyes.

“For God’s sake, what is it?” I cried out, frightened to death, for the countenance of my husband as he knelt by me was so deeply overclouded by sorrow that I guessed at once that some misfortune had happened. Instead of replying he laid his head on my breast.

I understood all. He had to go. I had thrown my arm round his neck, and we remained both in the same position for some time without speaking.

“When?” I asked at length.

“Early to-morrow morning.”

“Oh, my God! my God!”

“Calm yourself, my poor Martha.”

“No, no, let me weep. My misfortune is too great, and I know—I see it in your face—so is yours. Never did I see so much pain in any human face as I have just read in your features.”

“Yes, my wife. I am unfortunate to have to leave you in such a moment——”

“Frederick, Frederick; we shall never see each other again. I shall die——”

“Or I shall fall. Yes, I believe it, too; we shall never see each other again!”

It was a heart-breaking parting that occupied these last twenty-four hours. This was now the second time in my life that I had seen a dear husband depart to the war. But this second tearing ourselves apart was incomparably worse than the first. Then my way of taking it and still more Arno’s was quite different and more primitive. I looked on the departure as a natural necessity which overbalanced all personal feelings, and he looked at it even as a joyous expedition in search of glory. He went with cheerfulness. I remained without a murmur. There still clung to me something of the admiration for war which I had imbibed from my youthful education. I still shared to some extent with the departing soldier in the pride which he visibly felt in the “great emprise”. But now I knew that he who was going went to the work of death with horror rather than with exultation, I knew that he loved the life which he had to set on the hazard—that to him one thing was dearer than everything, yes, everything, even the claims of the Augustenburgs—his wife—his wife who in a few days was to be a mother. Whilst in Arno’s case I had the conviction that he departed with feelings for which he was surely to be envied, I discerned that in this second separation both of us were deserving of equal pity. Yes, we suffered in equal measure, and we confessed it and bewailed it to each other. No hypocrisies, no empty phrases of consolation, no swagger; we were one in all things, and neither sought to deceive the other. It was still our best consolation that each could fully understand the other’s inconsolability. We did not seek to conceal the magnitude of the misfortune that had burst on us by any conventional cloaks or masks of patriotism or heroism. No, the prospect of being allowed to shoot and hack at the Danes was to him no compensation for the anguish of having to leave me—on the contrary, rather an aggravation—for killing and destroying is repulsive to every “noble man”. And to me it was no recompense—absolutely none—for my suffering to think that my dear one might perhaps gain a step in rank. And should the misfortune of this perilous separation rise to the still greater misfortune of parting for ever—should Frederick fall—the reasons of state on account of which this war had to be waged were not in the faintest degree elevated or holy enough to my mind to balance such a sacrifice. “Defender of his Country,” that is the fair-sounding title with which the soldier is decorated. And in fact what nobler duty can there be for the members of a commonwealth than to defend their state when menaced? But then why does his military oath bind the soldier to a hundred other warlike duties, besides the defensive? Why is he obliged to go and attack? Why must he, in cases where there is not the slightest menace of any invasion of his country, hazard the same possessions—his life and his hearth—in the quarrels of certain foreign princes for territory or ambition, as if it were a question, as it surely ought to be to justify war, of the defence of endangered life and hearth? Why, for example, in the present instance, must the Austrian army march out to set the Augustenburgs on a foreign throne? Why? Why? The question is one which to address to an emperor or pope is in itself treasonable and blasphemous, which in the latter case passes for irreligion and in the former for want of loyalty, and which never deserves an answer.

The regiment was to march at 10 A.M. We stayed up the whole night. Not a minute of the time still left to us to spend together would we lose.

There was so much that we had still to say to each other, and yet we spoke little. It was mainly kisses and tears, which said more plainly than any words: “I love you, and I have to leave you”. From time to time there dropped in a hopeful word, “When you come back again”. It was certainly possible. Surely there are so many that come back; yet it was strange I repeated “When you come back” and tried to put before myself the delights of this event; but in vain. My imagination could form no other picture than that of my husband’s corpse on the field of battle, or myself on the bier, with a dead child in my arms.

Frederick was filled with similar gloomy forebodings, for his “When I come back” did not sound natural; and more often he spoke of what might happen, “If I should fall”.

“Do not marry a third time, Martha! Do not wash out, by the impressions of a new love, the recollections of this glorious year! Has it not been a happy time?”

We now recalled a hundred little details which had impressed themselves on our minds, from our first meeting to the present hour, and passed them through our remembrance.

“And my little one, my poor little one, whom perhaps I may never press to my heart, what is its name to be?”

“Frederick or Frederica.”

“No; Martha is prettier. If it is a girl call it by the name which its dying father at the last moment——”

“Frederick, why do you talk always about dying? If you come back——”

“Ah! if!” he repeated with a sigh.

As the day was beginning to dawn, my eyes, weary with weeping, closed, a light slumber fell on both of us. We lay there with our arms linked together, but without losing the consciousness that this was our parting hour.

Suddenly I started up and broke out into loud groans. Frederick got up at once.

“In God’s name, Martha, what is the matter with you? It is not yet come? Oh speak! Is it——”

I nodded affirmatively.

Was it a cry, or a curse, or an ejaculation of prayer, that escaped his lips? He clutched the bell and gave the alarm.

“Run at once for the doctor—for the nurse,” he shouted to the maid who had hurried in. Then he threw himself down on his knees beside me, and kissed my hand as it hung down.

“My wife! my all! and now, now I have to go.”

I could not speak. The most violent physical pain that one can conceive was racking and wringing my body; and besides this, the agony of my soul was yet more horrible, that he “had to go now, now”; and that he was so wretched about it. Those who had been summoned came quickly, and at once made themselves busy about me. At the same time Frederick had to make his last preparations for the march. After he had done this: “Doctor, doctor,” he cried, seizing the physician by both hands, “you promise me, do you not, that you will bring her through? And you will telegraph to me to-day, and afterwards there and there,” naming the stations which he had to pass on the march. “And if there is any danger—— Ah! but what good is it?” he interrupted himself. “If even the danger were ever so great, could I come back then?”

“It is hard, baron,” the physician replied; “but do not be too anxious, the patient is young and strong. This evening it will be all over, and you will receive a tranquillising despatch.”

“Oh yes! You mean to send good news in any case, because the opposite would do no good! But I will have the truth! Listen, doctor! I must have your most sacred word of honour on it. The whole truth. Only on this condition could a tranquillising account really give me tranquillity. Otherwise I should think it all a lie. So swear to do this.”

The physician gave the promise required.

“O my poor, poor husband”—the thought cut me to the soul—“even if you receive the news to-day that your Martha is lying on her deathbed, you cannot turn back to close her eyes! You have something more important on hand—the claims of the Augustenburgs to a throne.”

“Frederick!” I cried out loud.

He flew to my side. At this moment the clock struck. He had now only a minute or two. But we were cheated out of even this last respite, for another attack seized me, and instead of the words of adieu, I could only utter groans of anguish.

“Go, baron—finish this scene,” said the physician, “for the patient such excitement is dangerous.”

One more kiss, and he rushed out. My cries and the doctor’s last word, “dangerous,” gave him his dismissal.

In what frame of mind must he have been when he departed? The local newspapers of OlmÜtz gave this report next day:—

“Yesterday the—th Regiment left our town with music playing and banners waving, to gain fresh laurels for themselves in the sea-surrounded brotherland. Cheerful courage filled the ranks; one could see the joy of battle glowing in the men’s eyes——” and so on, and so on.

Frederick had already telegraphed to Aunt Mary before his departure that I was in want of her help, and she came a few hours later to me. She found me senseless and in great danger.

For several weeks I hovered between life and death. My child died the day of its birth. The mental pain, which parting from my beloved husband had caused me, just at the time when I wanted all my strength to master the bodily pain, had rendered me incapable of bearing up against it, and I was near succumbing altogether.

The physician was obliged by his plighted word to send my poor husband the sorrowful news that the child was dead, and the mother in danger of death.

As to the news which came from him, they could not be communicated to me. I knew no one and was delirious day and night. A strange delirium. I brought back with me a feeble reminiscence of it into the period of recovered consciousness, but to reproduce this in reasonable words would be impossible for me. In the abnormal whirl of the fevered brain, conceptions and images form themselves for which there is no expression in language suitable to our normal thoughts. Only so much can I set down—and I have attempted to fix the fantastic sketch in the red volumes—that I confused the two events—the war and my confinement—together. I fancied that cannon and naked weapons (I distinctly felt the bayonet thrusts) were the instruments of delivery, and that I was lying there the prize of contention between two armies rushing on each other. That my husband had marched out I knew, but I saw him still in the form of the dead Arno, while by my side Frederick dressed as a sick nurse was stroking the silver stork. Every moment I was awaiting the bursting shell which was to shatter us all three—Arno, Frederick, and me—to pieces, in order that the child could come into the world, who was destined to rule over “Denstein, Schlesmark, and Holwig.” ... And all this gave me such unspeakable pain and was so unnecessary.... There must, however, be some one somewhere who could change it and remove it all, who could lift off this mountain from my heart and that of all humanity by some word of power; and I was devoured with a longing to cast myself at this somebody’s feet and pray to him: “Help us! for the sake of mercy and justice help us! Lay down your arms! down!” With this cry on my lips I woke one day to consciousness. My father and Aunt Mary were standing at the foot of the bed, and the former said to me to hush me:—

“Yes, yes, child, be quiet. All arms down.”

This recovery of the sense of personality after a long suspension of the intellect is certainly a strange thing. First the joyful astonished discovery that one is alive, and then the anxious questioning with oneself who one really is....

But the sudden answer to that question, which burst in with full light upon me, changed the just awakened pleasure of existence into violent pain. I was the sick Martha Tilling, whose new-born child was dead, and whose husband was gone to battle.... How long ago? That I knew not.

“Is he alive?—have you letters there?—messages?” were my first questions. Yes; there was quite a little heap of letters and telegrams piled up which had come during my illness. Most of them were merely inquiries after my condition, requests for daily, and as far as possible, hourly information. This, of course, was so long as the writer was at places where the telegraph could reach him.

I was not permitted to read Frederick’s letters at once; they thought it would excite me too much and disturb me; and now that I was hardly awake out of my delirium I must, before all things, have repose. They could tell me as much as this: “Frederick was unhurt up to the present time”. He had already been through several successful engagements. The war must now soon be over. The enemy maintained themselves at Alsen only; and if this position once were taken our troops would return, crowned with glory. This was what my father said for my comfort, and Aunt Mary gave me the history of my illness. Several weeks had now passed since her arrival, which was the very day on which Frederick departed, and my child was born and died. Of that I had preserved a recollection, but what passed in the interval—my father’s arrival—the news that had come from Frederick—the course of my illness—of all that I knew nothing. Now I heard for the first time that my condition had become so much worse that the medical men had quite given me up, and my father had been called to see me “for the last time”. The bad news must certainly have been sent to Frederick; but the better news also—for the doctors had given hope again some days ago—must by this time have reached him.

“If he himself is still alive,” I struck in, with a deep sigh.

“Do not commit a sin, Martha,” my aunt admonished me; “the good God and His saints would not have preserved you, in answer to our prayers, in order afterwards to send such a visitation upon you. Your husband also will be preserved to you, for whom I—you may believe me when I say so—have prayed as fervently as for you. I have even sent him a scapulary. Oh yes! Do not shrug your shoulders; you have no trust in such things, but they can do no harm anyhow, can they? And how many proofs there are of their good effect! You yourself are again another proof what effect the intervention of the saints has; for you were, believe me, on the edge of the grave, when I addressed myself to your patron and protectress, St. Martha——”

“And I,” interrupted my father, who was very clerical indeed in his politics, but in the practical way did not at all sympathise with his sister, “I wrote to Vienna for Dr. Braun, and he saved your life.”

Next day, on my urgent prayer, I was permitted to read through all the messages that had come from Frederick. Mostly they were only questions in a single line, or news equally laconic. “An engagement yesterday. I am unhurt.” “We march again to-day. Send messages to——” A longer letter bore this direction on the envelope: “To be delivered only if all danger is over”. This I read last:—

“My all! Will you ever read this? The last news which reached me from your physician ran: ‘Patient in high fever; condition grave’. ‘Grave!’ He used the expression perhaps out of consideration, so as not to say ‘Hopeless’. If you have this put into your hands you will know by that that you have escaped the danger; but you may think, in addition, what my feelings were, as, on the eve of a battle, I pictured to myself that my adored wife was lying on her deathbed; that she was calling for me, stretching out her arms for me. We did not even say any regular adieu to each other; and our child, about whom I had had such joy, dead! And to-morrow, I myself—suppose a bullet find me? If I knew beforehand that you were no more, the mortal shot would be the dearest thing to me; but if you are preserved—no! then I do not wish to know anything more of death. The ‘joy of dying,’ that unnatural feeling which the field preachers are always pressing on us, is one no happy man can know; and if you are alive, and I reach home, I have still untold treasures of bliss to gather. Oh, the joy of living with which we two will enjoy the future, if any such is to be our lot.

“To-day we met the enemy for the first time. Up to that our way had been through conquered territory, from which the Danes had retreated. Smoking ruins of villages, ravaged cornfields, weapons and knapsacks lying about, spots where the land was ploughed up by the shells, blood stains, bodies of horses, trenches filled with the slain—such are the features of the scenes through which we have been moving in the rear of the victors, in order, if possible, to add more victories to the account—i.e., to burn more villages, and so forth.... And that we have done to-day. We have carried the position. Behind us lies a village in flames. The inhabitants had the good luck to have quitted it beforehand; but in the stable a horse had been forgotten. I heard the beast in despair stamping and shrieking. Do you know what I did? It will procure me no decoration most certainly; for, instead of bringing down a Dane or two, I rushed to the stable to set the poor horse free. Impossible; the manger had already caught fire, then the straw under his hoofs, then his mane. So I put two revolver bullets through his head. He fell down dead, and was saved from the pain of being burned to death. Then, back into the fight, the deathly smell of the powder, the wild alarm of the whistling bullets, falling buildings, savage war-cries. Most of those around me, friends and foes, were, it is true, seized by the delirium of battle; but I remained in unblessed sobriety. I could not get myself up to hate the Danes. They are brave men, and what did they do but their duty in attacking us? My thoughts were with you, Martha! I saw you laid out on your bier, and what I wished for myself was that the bullet might strike me. But at intervals, nevertheless, a ray of longing and of hope would shine again. ‘What if she is alive? What if I should get home again?’

“The butchery lasted more than two hours, and we remained as I said, in possession of the field. The routed enemy fled. We did not pursue. We had work enough to do on the field. A hundred paces distant from the village stood a large farmhouse, with many empty dwelling-rooms and stables; here we were to rest for the night and hither we have brought our wounded. The burial of the dead is to be done to-morrow morning. Some of the living will, of course, be shovelled in with them, for the ‘stiff cramp’ after a severe wound is a common phenomenon. Many who have remained out, whether dead or wounded, or even unwounded, we are obliged to abandon entirely, especially those who are lying under the ruins of the fallen houses. There they may, if dead, moulder slowly where they are; if wounded, bleed slowly to death; if unwounded, die slowly of famine. And we, hurrah! may go on with our jolly, joyous war!

“The next engagement will probably be a general action. According to all appearance there will be two entire corps d’armÉe opposed to each other. The number of the killed and wounded may in that case easily rise to 10,000; for when the cannons begin their work of vomiting out death the front ranks on both sides are soon wiped out. It is certainly a wonderful contrivance. But still better would it be if the science of artillery could progress to such a point that any army could fire a shot which would smash the whole army of the enemy at one blow. Then, perhaps, all waging of war would be entirely given up. Force would then, provided the total power of the two combatants were equally great, no longer be looked to for the solution of questions of right.

“Why am I writing all this to you? Why do I not break out, as a warrior should, into exalted hymns of triumph over our warlike work? Why? Because I thirst after truth, and after its expression without any reserve; because at all times I hate lying phrases; but at this moment, when I am so near death myself, and am speaking to you who, perhaps, are yourself lying in the death-agony, it presses on me doubly to speak what is in my heart. Even though a thousand others should think differently, or should hold themselves bound at least to speak differently, I will, nay, I must say it once more before I fall a sacrifice to war—I hate war. If only every man who feels the same would dare to proclaim it aloud, what a threatening protest would be shouted out to heaven! All the hurrahs which are now resounding, and all the cannon-thunder that accompanies them, would then be drowned by the battle-cry of humanity panting after humanity, by the victorious cry denouncing ‘war on war’.

“Half-past three in the morning. I wrote the above last night. Then I lay down on a sack of straw and slept for an hour or two. We shall break up in half-an-hour, and then I shall be able to give this to the field-post. All is stirring now and getting ready for the march. Poor fellows! they have got little rest since the bloody work accomplished yesterday: little refreshment for that which is to be accomplished to-day. I began with a turn round our improvised field-hospital, which is to remain here. There I saw among the wounded and dying a pair for whom I would gladly have done the same as for the horse in the fire—put a bullet as a coup de grÂce through their heads. One was a man who had had his whole lower jaw shot away, and the other—but enough. I cannot help him. Nothing can but Death. Unfortunately he is often so slow. If a man calls in despair for him he stands deaf before him. On the other hand, he is far too busy in snatching those away who with all their heart are hoping to recover, and calling on him beseechingly: ‘Oh, spare me, for I have a beloved wife pining for me at home!’ My horse is saddled, so now I must close these lines. Farewell, Martha, if you are still here!”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Luckily there were tidings of a later date in the packet than the letter above quoted. After the great battle predicted in the last Frederick had been able to tell me:— “The day is ours. I am unhurt. These are two pieces of good news, the first for your papa, the second for you. But I cannot overlook the fact that the same day has brought numberless griefs to numberless others....”

In another letter Frederick related how he had met with his cousin Godfrey.

“Picture to yourself my astonishment. Whom should I see riding before me at the head of a detachment, but Aunt Cornelia’s only son! How the poor woman must be trembling for him.... The young man himself is all eagerness and love of battle. I saw it in his proud, joyful bearing, and he has also told me so. We were in camp together the same evening and I invited him into my tent. ‘It is indeed splendid,’ he cried out in rapture, ‘that we are fighting in the same cause, cousin, and together. Am not I in luck, that war should have broken out in the first year of my lieutenancy? I shall gain the Cross of Merit.’ ‘And my aunt, how did she take your departure?’ ‘Oh! in the mother’s way, with tears—which she did all she could to hide, so as not to damp my spirit—with blessings, with grief, and with pride.’ ‘And what were your feelings when you first got into the melÉe?’ ‘Oh, delightful! ennobling!’ ‘You need not use falsehood to me, my dear boy. It is not the staff officer who is asking about your feelings as a lieutenant bound to duty, but a man and a friend.’ ‘I can only repeat, delightful and ennobling. Awful, I grant, but so magnificent. And the consciousness that I am fulfilling, with God’s help, the highest duty of a man to king and country! And further, that I see Death, the spectre elsewhere so feared and shunned, so close and busy all round me, his very breath breathing over me—the thought raises me to a mood of mind so elevated above the common, so epic that I feel the muse of history hovering over our heads and lending our swords the might of victory. A noble rage glows in me against the presumptuous foe, who would have trampled on the rights of the German countries, and it is to me an enthusiasm to have the power of gratifying this hatred. It is a curious, mysterious thing, this power of killing—nay, this compulsion to kill—without being a murderer—with a fearless exposure of one’s own life.’

“So the boy chattered on. I let him talk. I had similar feelings when my first battle was raging round me. ‘Epic!’—yes, there you hit on the right word. The heroic poems and the heroic histories by whose means our schools bring us up to be warriors, these are what are set vibrating in our brains by the thunders of the cannonade, the flash of naked weapons, and the shouts of the combatants. And the freedom from ordinary circumstances, the inexplicable freedom from law in which one finds oneself all of a sudden, makes one feel as if transported into another world—it is like an outlook beyond this trumpery earthly existence, with its peaceful domestic quiet, into a titanic struggle of infernal spirits. But this giddiness soon passed over with me, and it is only with an effort that I can bring back to my mind the sensations which young Tessow sketched to me. I recognised too soon that the desire for battle was not a super-human but an infra-human feeling, no mystic revelation from the realms of the morning, but a reminiscence of the realm of the animal, a re-awakening of the brutal. And a man who can intoxicate himself into a savage lust for blood, who—as I have seen several of our men do—can cut down with uplifted sabre an unarmed enemy, who can sink into a Berserker, or lower still, a blood-thirsty tiger—that is the man who, for the moment, revels in the ‘joy of battle’. I never did this. Believe me, my wife; I never did.

“Godfrey is delighted that we Austrians are united in fighting for the ‘right cause’ (how does he know that? As if every cause is not always represented as the ‘right’ one by its own side!) with the Prussians: ‘Yes, we Germans are all one united people of brothers!’ ‘That was seen long ago in the Thirty Years’ War, and also in the Seven Years’ War,’ I struck in half-aloud. Godfrey missed what I said, and went on: ‘For each other and with each other we can conquer every foe’. ‘What will you say then, my young friend, if to-day or to-morrow the Prussians and Austrians quarrel, and we two shall be ranged as foes, one against each other?’ ‘Not conceivable, now, after the blood of both of us has flowed for the same cause. Now surely we can never more——’ ‘Never more? I would warn you not to use the expressions “never” or “for ever” in political matters. What ephemerides are in the scale of living beings, such are the friendships and enmities of nations in the scale of historical phenomena.’

“I write all this down, Martha, not that I think it can interest you, poor sufferer, nor because I want to make reflections to you upon it, but I have an idea that I shall fall, and in that case I do not wish my sentiments to sink into the grave with me unuttered. My letter may even be found and read by others, if not by you. That which is coming up in the minds of soldiers who think freely, and feel like men, shall not remain for ever unspoken and concealed. ‘I have dared it’ was Ulrich v. Hutten’s motto. ‘I have spoken it,’ and with this to quiet my conscience, I can depart this life.”

The most recent news that had reached me had been sent off five days, and arrived two days previously. What was to show that in five days—five days of war—anything might not have taken place? Anxiety and fear seized me. Why had no line come yesterday? Why none to-day? Oh, this longing for a letter—or, better, a telegram! I believe no one in the tortures of fever can so long for water as I then was longing for news. I was saved; he would have the great joy of finding me alive, if—always this “if” which nips every hope for the future in the bud.

My father was obliged to depart. He could now leave me with a quiet mind. The danger was over, and he had now pressing business at Grumitz. As soon as I had got the needful strength, I was to follow him there with my little Rudolf. A stay in the fresh country air would in the first place restore me entirely, and would also do good to the little boy. Aunt Mary stayed behind. She was to keep on nursing me and then to travel with us to Grumitz where Rosa and Lilly had already gone on before. I let them talk and make plans for me. Without saying anything I had made up my mind, as soon as I was even half able to do so, to set off for Schleswig-Holstein.

Where Frederick’s regiment might be at this moment, we knew not. It was impossible to get any despatch forwarded to him, or I should have liked to telegraph to him every hour, and to ask: “Are you alive?”

“You must not excite yourself so,” my father preached to me, as he took leave of me, “or else you are sure to get a relapse again. Two days without news—what is there in that? There is really no reason at all for anxiety. There are not letter-boxes or telegraph stations all over the field of battle: leaving out of the question that a man during the march and the battle and the bivouac is in no condition to write. The field post does not always act regularly, and so one may easily remain a fortnight without news, and still that signify nothing bad. In my time I have often been even longer without writing home; but no one was anxious about me on that account.”

“How do you know that, papa? I am sure that your relations trembled for you just as much as I am trembling for Frederick. Did you not, aunt?”

“We had more trust in God than you have,” she replied. “We knew that a merciful Providence would so order it, that, whether we got any news or none, your father would come back to us.”

“And if I had never come back, but had got smashed to bits, you would have had enough love for your country to allow that so small a thing as the life of an individual soldier quite vanishes in the great cause for which he has parted with it. You, my daughter, have not for a long time been patriotic enough. But I will not scold you now. The main point is that you should get well again, and preserve yourself for your Rudi, to make a brave man of him, and bring him up to be a defender of his country.”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I did not get well so quickly as was hoped at first. The continued absence of news threw me into such excitement and misery that I never really got out of a feverish condition. My nights were filled with horrible phantoms and my days passed in weary longing or troubled stupor, so that it was difficult to get my strength up again.

Once, after a night in which I had had peculiarly terrifying visions—Frederick, alive, but buried under a heap of corpses of men and horses—a relapse actually set in which again brought me in danger of my life. My poor Aunt Mary had a hard time of it. She thought it a duty to preach comfort and resignation to me unceasingly, and her reason for it, the “destiny” which was constantly coming in again, had the effect of irritating me to the extreme, and instead of letting her quietly prose away I set myself to contradict her passionately, to complain of my fate in defiance of her, and to assure her in plain terms that her “destiny” seemed to me folly. All this, of course, sounded blasphemous, and my good aunt not only felt herself personally insulted, but she trembled also for my rebellious soul, so soon, perhaps, to appear before the judgment seat. There was only one means to quiet me for a few minutes. That was to bring little Rudolf into my bed-room. “You beloved child of mine! You are my comfort, my stay, my future!” This is what I cried out in my inward soul to the boy whenever I saw him. But he did not like staying long in the darkened sick-room. It struck him as uncanny to see his mamma who used to be so gay now lying constantly in bed, pale and exhausted with weeping. He became himself quite out of spirits, and so I only kept him with me for a few minutes at a time.

Frequent inquiries and news came from my father. He had written to Frederick’s colonel and to several other people besides, but “had no answer as yet”. When any list of killed and wounded came in he would send me a telegram: “Frederick not there”. “Oh! perhaps you are deceiving me,” I once asked my aunt, “perhaps the news of his death has arrived long ago and you are concealing it from me——”

“I swear to you——”

“On your honour, on your soul?”

“On my soul.”

Such an assurance as this did me more good than I can tell; for I clung with all my might to my hope; every hour I was expecting the arrival of a letter—of a telegram. At every noise in the next room I fancied that it was the postman, almost continually my eyes were turning towards the door with the constant picture of some one coming in with the blessed message in his hand. When I look back on those days they seem to present themselves to my memory as a whole year filled with torture. The next gleam of light for me was the news that a suspension of arms had again been agreed on; this must surely this time be the presage of peace. On the day after the receipt of this intelligence I sat up for a little while for the first time. Peace! what a sweet, what a happy thought! Perhaps too late for me. No matter. I felt myself anyhow unspeakably calmed; at any rate I had no need to fancy every day, every hour, the raging battle going on in which Frederick might at that moment be killed.

“Thank God! now you will soon be well,” said my aunt one day after helping me to seat myself on a couch which had been moved to the open window for me. “And then we can go to Grumitz.”

“As soon as I have strength for it, I am going to Alsen.”

“To Alsen? My dear child, what are you thinking about?”

“I want to find the place there where Frederick was either wounded or——” I could not finish the sentence.

“Shall I fetch little Rudolf?” said my aunt after a pause. She knew that this was the best way to chase away my troubled thoughts for a time.

“No, not yet, I want to be quite quiet and alone. It would be doing me a kindness, aunt, if even you would go into the next room. Perhaps I may sleep a little, I feel so weak!”

“Very well, my dear, I will leave you quiet. There is a bell here on the table by you. If you want anything, some one will be ready at once.”

“Has the letter-carrier been here?”

“No, it is not post time yet.”

“If he comes, call me.”

I lay down and shut my eyes. My aunt went out softly. All the people in the house had lately adopted this inaudible walk.

I did not want to sleep, but to be alone with my thoughts. I was in the same room, on the same couch as on that afternoon when Frederick came to tell me “we have got marching orders”. It was just as sultry again as on that day, and again there were roses breathing in a vase near me, and again the trumpet exercise was sounding from the barracks. I could return entirely into the frame of mind of that day. I wished I could go to sleep again in the same way and dream as I then fancied I dreamt—that the door opened gently and my beloved husband entered. The roses were smelling even more powerfully, and through the open window the distant tra-ra-ra was sounding. By degrees my consciousness of present things vanished. I found myself ever more and more transported into that hour; all was forgotten that had happened since, and only the one fixed idea became ever more intense that at any moment the door might open and give my dear one admission. But to this end I had to dream that I was keeping my eyes only half open. It was an effort to force myself to this, but it succeeded. I opened my eyelids ever so little and——

And there it was, the entrancing vision! Frederick, my beloved Frederick, on the threshold. With a loud sob, and covering my face with both hands, I roused myself from my dreamy state. It was clear to me at a stroke that this was only a hallucination, and the heavenly ray of happiness that had been poured round me by this delusion made the hellish night of my misery seem all the blacker to me.

“Oh, my Frederick, my lost one!” I groaned.

“Martha, my wife!”

What was that? A real voice, his own, and real arms that were thrown eagerly round me——

It was no dream. I was lying on my husband’s breast.