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 forever! 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 reveille 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 tomorrow 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 heartbreaking 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
