_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.