Lay Down Your Arms: The Autobiography of Martha von Tilling

by Bertha von Suttner

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.