My father, in spite of all his fatalism, insisted on flight for the others. The whole family were to be off next day. He alone determined on remaining, in order not to abandon his household and the inhabitants of the village in their danger. Frederick declared in the most decisive manner his determination to remain, and this involved at once my decision. I would never voluntarily leave my husband.
Aunt Mary with the two girls and with Otto and Rudolf were to depart as quickly as possible—whither? That was not yet settled. In the first place, to Hungary—as far away as possible. The fiancées did not make any opposition whatever, but were busy in helping to pack. To die, when the near future promised the fulfilment of the warm desires of love, i.e., a tenfold delight in living, would be to die tenfold.
The boxes had been brought into the dining-room, so that with the united assistance of all the work might go on quicker. I was bringing a package of Rudolf’s clothes under my arm.
“Why does not your maid do that?” asked my father.
“I do not know where Netty has got to. I have rung for her several times, and she does not come, so I prefer to wait on myself.”
“You spoil your people,” said my father angrily, and he gave orders to a footman to look for the girl everywhere and bring her there immediately.
After a time the man who had been sent returned, looking confused.
“Netty is lying down in her room. She is—she has—she is—”
“Well, can’t you speak?” thundered my father. “What is the matter with her?”
“She is already—quite black.”
A cry burst out of all our mouths. So the horrible spectre was already present in our own very house.
Now, what should we do? Could one leave the poor girl to die unaided? But whoever went near her brought death on himself almost certainly, and not only on himself, he spread it again more widely among the rest. Ah! a house like that, into which the pest has penetrated, is like one encircled by robbers, or as if it were in flames; everywhere and in every corner and place, at every step and move, Death is grinning at you.
“Fetch the doctor immediately,” was my father’s order. “And you, children, hurry your departure.”
“The doctor went back to town an hour ago,” was the servant’s reply to my father’s direction.
“Oh, dear! I feel so ill,” now cried Lilly, and she turned pale to her very lips, and clutched at the arm of her chair.
We ran to her: “What is the matter with you?”—“Don’t be foolish”—“It is only fear.”
But it was not fear, there was no doubt what it was. We had to carry the poor thing to her room, where she was seized at once with violent vomiting and the other symptoms. This was the second case of cholera in the château in this same day.
It was horrible to see my poor sister’s sufferings. And no doctor at hand! Frederick was the only one who could perform the duty of one, as well as he might. He ordered what was wanted—warm fomentations, mustard poultices to the stomach and the legs, ice in fragments, champagne. Nothing did any good. These means, which are sufficient for slight attacks of cholera, could not save in this case. But at least they gave the patient and the bystanders the comfort of knowing that something was being done. When the attacks had subsided, the cramps followed, quiverings and tearings of the whole frame till the very bones cracked. The poor thing tried to lament, but could not, for her voice failed, the skin turned blue and cold, the breath stopped.
My father was running up and down, wringing his hands. Once I put myself in his way.
“This is war, father,” I said. “Will not you curse it?”
He shook me off and gave no reply.
In ten hours Lilly was dead. Netty, my poor lady’s maid had died before—alone, in her room. We were all of us busy about Lilly, and of the servants, none had ventured to go near one who had “already turned quite black.”
Meanwhile Dr. Bresser had arrived. He himself brought the medicines which we had telegraphed for. I could have kissed his hands as he walked into the midst of us to devote his self-sacrificing services to his old friends. He at once took on himself the command of the establishment. He had the two corpses carried into a remote chamber, barred up the rooms in which the poor things had died, and made us all submit to a powerful disinfecting process. An intense carbolic odour now penetrated all the rooms, and to this day, whenever this smell meets me, those dreadful days of cholera rise before my imagination.
The intended flight had to be postponed a second time. On the very day of Lilly’s death, the carriage was standing ready which was to convey away Aunt Mary, Rosa, Otto, and my little boy, when the coachman, seized by the invisible destroyer, was forced to get off the coach-box again.
“Then I will drive you,” said my father, when the news was brought to him. “Quick, is everything ready?”
Rosa came out. “Drive on,” she said, “but I must stop behind. I am going Lilly’s way.”
And she spoke truth. The break of day dawned on this second young bride too in the chamber of death.
Of course, in the horror of this new calamity, the departure of the others was not carried out.
In the midst of my anguish, of my raging fear, the deepest scorn again seized me for that gigantic folly which had voluntarily called forth so great a calamity. My father, when Rosa’s corpse had been carried out, had sunk on his knees, with his head against the wall.
I went to him, and took him by the arm. “Father,” I said, “this is war.” No answer. “Father, do you hear? Now
