“The nightingale’s song of yearning
Is blent with the streamlet’s sigh;
Above and around the gables
The swallows circling fly.
And they sing of the passing races
That have lived and loved there of yore,
How they vanished away in their season,
Yet the line is renewed as before.
The seed of their spirit’s sowing
Still blooms, though the years decay;
The earth cannot hide or consume it,
Nor the storm cannot sweep it away.
The strength of the house is quickened
With the glow of ancestral fires;
The child from the father inherits,
And the ancient spirit inspires.
* * * * *
The Rhine oft rises in greeting
Around my city’s wall,
And twineth his arms about her,
For he loves her best of all.”
With justified maternal pride the mother could gaze on her fair-haired
and only little daughter, who became again here the centre of all love
and care. On the journey between Mayence and Neuwied the child had
repeatedly asked, “Is that mamma’s Rhine?” But the little Princess
Marie had, notwithstanding her tender age, an irresistible longing for
the country in which she had first seen the light. She was constantly
craving to be back again in her distant home, and became nearly ill
from home sickness. During the whole journey she kept repeating--“Home,
home, let us go home!” When the Roumanian students came to meet them at
the station at Vienna, she called out to them in Roumanian, “I am going
home to Bucharest with eight horses.”
On the return of the Princess to Roumania, they once more took up
their abode in the romantic old monastery of Sinaia. Typhus and
scarlet fever were raging in Bucharest. The Princess writes full of
anxiety--“Bucharest is in such an unhealthy state that I shall return
to it with fear and trembling. Typhus fever and angina reign there
supreme. Diphtheria has carried off many of the children. They die in a
few hours. I often become as unsettled and melancholy as a dark day in
the autumn. Then an interesting person or piece of news comes in, and
one brightens up like the dew in the sunshine.”
“_22nd November._--It is four years to-day since I arrived in
Turnu Severin. Now I see the world here in a different light. The
tranquillity which habit brings has come over me, instead of all my
fear and trembling. And I feel safer here, and more in my right place,
than anywhere else in the world.”
_To her Brother._
“BUCHAREST, 1873.
“People now often come to me to discuss their own affairs and seek for
advice, comfort, and help. This makes me very happy, and as I wrote to
some one lately: I am beginning to grow to my ideal, which is to become
the confidential adviser of the Roumanian State, house, and family.
This is a very grateful office, and only in this manner can I become
really happy in my intercourse with so many people.
“Yes, my life here is very rich and full. I could not have imagined or
wished it otherwise! It had to be attained by great sacrifices, and my
endeavour is to make it worthy of them.”
* * * * *
“_24th November 1873._--Itty now begins to say such pretty little
things. Seeing the bust of her father lately, she exclaimed--‘Oh, look
how Jack Frost has fallen on papa.’ She has made great progress in
Roumanian this autumn, and sings three Roumanian songs, also a German
ditty. All the games of the Kindergarten go very well already.”
“_24th March 1874._--Itty has not forgotten any part of her stay in
‘Segenhaus’--no place and no name; and likes to talk of it all. She is
a little Will-o’-the-Wisp, in all corners at once, which is a great
trial for Mentor, the favourite dog. She makes him nervous, and he
struggles to free himself from her embraces. He is not demonstrative,
and likes to be left in peace. It is too funny to see them!”
“_February 1874._--Diphtheria and scarlet fever are raging in
Bucharest. A great many children die. When we mothers meet we ask each
other, ‘Are your children still well?’”
The little Princess also had a slight attack of diphtheria, which was
soon overcome by speedy remedies. In the course of the winter she asked
her mother--“Will the frost come down from the little stars where God
lives and make Itty cold?” On Palm Sunday, the 5th of April, she was
seized with scarlet fever of very serious symptoms. Diphtheria was soon
added to it, and the danger increased every hour. It was impossible
to persuade the child to allow herself to be put into her crib. “Oh!
no, no!” she sobbed; “if I lie down, I shall go to sleep and never
wake again.” During the night of Maunday Thursday, whilst burning
with fever, the sweet child repeatedly called out--“I will drive to
Sinaia and drink of the water of the Pelesch.” When a cooling drink was
offered to her she shook her little head and said--“All is finished!”
It was on Maunday Thursday, the 9th of April; the child lay on the
lap of its English nurse. Her mother knelt before her, holding her
little hands. After violent attacks of suffocation, she breathed once
more--then a great silence followed--no breath stirred again.
Till the last moment the Princess had not realised that the bright life
of her child was nearing its close. But when all was still, and she
grasped the dreadful certainty, she bent with humble resignation before
the holy will of God. She herself closed the loved blue eyes of her
precious child, then rose quite calm and collected, and thanked the
doctors for their faithful care. No words of complaint passed her lips!
Her strength remained firm till they placed the body of the child in
its little bed.
The tender care of the Prince for his beloved wife was very touching.
He was utterly prostrated by the unexpected blow, and earnestly sought
for comfort and composure. “God loved my child more than ever I did,
and so He has taken it to Himself!” exclaimed the poor mother with
wonderful calmness. When the little body was placed in the coffin, and
it had been closed over her, the Princess put her hand on it and spoke
as in prayer--“God bless my child.” The Prince himself helped to bear
the coffin to the staircase of the palace. A troop of young girls from
the Asyle Hélène opened the procession, singing the funeral hymn with
hushed voices. In their white dresses, long white veils, and wreaths of
white flowers, they seemed spirits of light preceding the sunny child
to its last resting-place. Not four years had passed since the little
Princess had been baptized in the Church of Cotroceni, and now the
little coffin stood on the same place covered with flowers. Multitudes
of people from the town and the country joined the procession.
Upon the slope of a hill between the Asyle Hélène and the park of
Cotroceni lies the little grave, hidden in a wood, near the Church of
Elisabeta Dòamna. A low mound with a simple stone marks the place where
the princely pair had laid to rest their little daughter who was so
passionately loved! On the stone is engraved the consoling words of St.
Luke viii. 53: “WEEP NOT, FOR SHE IS NOT DEAD, BUT SLEEPETH.” Trees,
firs and pines, as well as all sorts of roses and flowers, surround
this little sanctum, which is entrusted to the care and protection of
the orphan child of the Asyle Hélène. Beside it stands the simple seat
as a resting-place.
The sorrow of the parents for the loss of their only child can never be
lightened, and will only end with their last breath. But the hope of a
heavenly life beyond the grave is the comfort of these bereaved ones!
For many months hundreds of people made pilgrimages to this spot,
for the whole country mourned with the afflicted parents. During
her short life the little Princess Marie had become the idol of the
people, and the Roumanians had looked up to her with pride as being
their own possession! All who were allowed to approach the bereaved
parents during this time of bitter sorrow were much impressed by their
unselfish resignation to the mysterious will of God. When the Princess
was given to understand this, she answered--“Dites à leur tous, que je
tâche de suivre l’example de ma mère. Je l’ai vue souffrir! Elle était
plus forte que moi!”
On the 12th of April 1874, after the death of her child, Princess
Elizabeth wrote to her mother:--“God has drawn my child to Himself in
His love! May He eternally be praised for the great happiness which
was mine! I would rather become a weeping rock like Niobe than never
have been a mother! Yes, it is too much joy for one little human
heart! My child is so happy, my love is stronger than the grave, and
I can rejoice in its joy! There is so much to say about the little
one, because she already had such marked characteristics, and was
so independent, original, and charming. Still she is mine for all
eternity! I have not lost the high dignity of a mother because my
child is separated from me. The great happiness which I enjoy is not
too dearly bought with this great sorrow! The pain is a thousand times
outweighed by the joy, for it was joy without a pang, and now it is
joyful pain!
“The chill frost came in the night, the night,
And my flower all withered lies.
His icy touch was so light, so light,
But it closed her fair blue eyes.
Ah me! is it thus that my joys depart,
While stricken and mute I stand.
O frost, let the fire that burns at my heart
Be quenched by thy cold, wet hand.
_May 1, 1874._
“Yes, God has given me much, very much. Such a father, such a mother,
such a brother, such a husband, and such a child. Too much indeed! and
though He removes them from my sight He does not take away His heavenly
gifts, for they dwell for ever in my memory. I feel that after such
great blessings I have no right to complain, and even to-day the joy
is so great in retrospection that the sorrow cannot crush me. I often
say that a mother’s love is deeper than the grave, and I rejoice in the
bliss of my child. But that the world cannot be otherwise than dark and
gloomy to me is not to be altered, and must be borne.
“Wherefore give to poor weak women--
To Earth-Mothers--babes from Heaven,
God, O God?
Fairy boons, seen but to vanish
Like a light-ray, like an air-waft!
Must then that which was one’s Soul’s soul,
Be so reft away, and leave us,
Leave us, struck in Life’s mid fulness
Deathly-sorrowful, and faltering?
Wherefore mad’st Thou us so humble,
So in lowliest clay entangled,
God, O God?
That we, with our own dear children
No more to consort are worthy?
So that, from our arms unskilful
Thou dost them withdraw, O Father?
When our sad frail hearts were breaking?
Formerly ’twas sunshine round us,
Days of peace, and long rejoicing,
God, O God!
Now is mortal silence o’er us,
Now is icy hush of heart!
As when storms have wrought their direst,
Mastless, anchorless the barque drifts,
So on Death’s grey waves we welter,
And we still must live, O Father!
--_Translated by Sir Edwin Arnold._
“The people here regard it as a great happiness to die on Thursday in
holy week, for on that day, they say, Heaven is open, and one flies in.
Consequently they regard me as a happy mother, to whom God has granted
that for which they ever pray, which is that if He sees fit to take a
child, it may die on this Thursday. What a curious coincidence! Even
this brings us nearer to the people, for they regard us as so richly
blessed. The whole country shows us the greatest sympathy. Our little
grave is always covered with wreaths and flowers which are placed
there by unknown hands. The girls from the Asyle come singly to the
grave in the early morning, say their prayer, bring a little flower,
and see that the lamp is still burning. It is a great help to me that
I came into a country where so much is done in memory of the dead.
Consequently that which lies nearest my heart is all arranged for me.
‘Dimbovitza apa dulce! Cine o bea nu se mai due!’
“Dimbovitza! Magic river,
Silver shining, memory haunted,
He who drinks thy crystal waters
Ne’er can quit thy shores enchanted.
Dimbovitza! all too deeply
Drank I of thy flowing river;
For my love, my inmost being
There, meseems, have sunk for ever.
Dimbovitza! Dimbovitza!
All my soul hast thou in keeping,
Since beneath thy banks of verdure
Lies my dearest treasure sleeping.”
Shortly before the child had been taken ill, the Princess had suffered
much from her eyes, and could now hardly occupy herself at all. It was
a great affliction to her to whom work was life! During these sad, dark
days she framed the sweet expressions of her child in verses which one
cannot read without emotion. The following poem is on the poetical
desire of the little Princess to kiss the sunbeams:--
“On the earth, in the shimmer
Of shining sunbeams
Which in golden light gleams
Paint the colours that glimmer,
How often, my child,
In those halcyon days
Hast thou lain, and smiled,
Kissing the rays.
Didst draw them to thee
With thy fingers in sport,
Or came they unsought
Thy playmates to be?
I ne’er could divine,
But methinks at thy birth
Thou wast sent on a sunbeam
To me and the earth.”
And now the sunbeams have kissed the lovely child and taken her away
with them. It seems as if all earthly hopes and all earthly joy
had been buried with her. A deep sorrow and an unutterable longing
stole into the heart of the Princess, which only a mother can really
understand, and which can only end with life. On the 25th of April the
following poem was found in the Journal--