Reluctantly and slowly I descend again into the valley of sorrows, of death, of sleeplessness, and of demons, where my little Beatrice awaits me and the promised piece of mistletoe, the green branch in the midst of the snow, which really ought to be cut with a golden sickle.
For a long time past the grandmother had expressed a wish to see me, whether it were to bring about a reconciliation or for occultist reasons, because she is a clairvoyante and visionary. I had postponed the visit under various pretexts, but now that my departure was resolved on, my mother-in-law obliged me to visit the old lady and bid her farewell, probably for the last time on this side of the grave. On November 26th, a cold, clear day, my mother-in-law, the child, and I made the pilgrimage to the bank of the Danube, where the family residence is. We alighted at the inn, and while my mother-in-law went to announce my visit to her mother, I wandered through the meadows and woods, which I had not seen for two years. Recollections overpowered me, and in all of them was interwoven the figure of my wife. And now everything is blighted by autumnal frosts; there is now not a single flower, nor a green blade of grass where we both plucked all the flowers of spring, summer, and autumn!
After the mid-day meal I am taken to the old lady who occupies the annex to the villa, the little house in which my child was born. Our meeting is, considering the circumstances, a cold one; they seem to expect that I should appear as the prodigal son, but I have no wish to act that rôle. I confine myself to indulging in reminiscences of our lost paradise. She and I had painted the door-and window-panels in honour of the little Christina's arrival in the world. The roses and clematis which adorn the front of the house were planted by my own hands. I had cut out the path through the garden. But the walnut tree which I planted the morning after Christina's birth has disappeared. The "life-tree," as we called it, is dead. Two years, two eternities, have elapsed since the farewell between her on the shore and me on the ship, in which I went to Linz in order to proceed thence to Paris.
Who has caused the breach between us? I, for I have murdered my own love and hers. Farewell, my white house, where grew thorns and roses. Farewell, Danube! I say to comfort myself, "You were a dream, short as summer, too sweet to be real, and I do not regret it."
The night comes. My mother-in-law and my child have, at my request, taken up their quarters in the inn, in order to protect me against the deadly attacks, which I forebode by means of a sixth sense which has been developed in me during the six months of persecution which I have suffered.
About ten o'clock in the evening a gust of wind begins to shake the door of my room, which is on the ground-floor. I make it fast with wooden wedges; it is no use; the door shakes still more. The windows rattle; there is a dog-like howling in the stove; the whole house reels like a ship. I cannot sleep; at one time my mother-in-law groans, at another the child cries. The next morning my mother-in-law, exhausted by sleeplessness and something else, which she conceals from me, says: "Depart, my child; I have enough of this hellish stench!" And I travel northwards, a restless pilgrim, into the fire of a new purgatory.