“Who?”
“Frederick, your husband.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Yes, so it was. It was the day before, late in the evening, that Frederick had been brought with a consignment of wounded from Bohemia to Vienna and from thence here. He had received a bullet in his leg, a wound which rendered him for the moment unfit for service and in need of nursing, but was entirely free from danger.
But joy is also hard to bear. The news then shouted to me by my sisters, so entirely without preparation, that “Frederick was there,” had just the same effect as the terror of the past days—it deprived me of consciousness.
They were obliged to carry me from the carriage into the château, and put me to bed. Here, whether from the after-effect of the narcotic, or the violence of the shock of joy, I spent several hours in unconsciousness, sometimes slumbering, sometimes delirious. When I came to myself and found myself in my own bed I believed myself to have awoke from a dreadful dream, and thought I had never left Grumitz. Bresser’s letter, my resolution to start for Bohemia, my experiences there, the homeward journey, the news of Frederick’s return home—all was a dream.
I looked up. My femme de chambre was standing at the foot of the bed. “Is my bath ready?” I asked. “I want to get up.”
Now Aunt Mary rushed forward out of a corner of the room.
“Oh Martha! poor dear, are you at last awake and restored to your senses? God be praised. Yes, yes; get up and take your bath. That will do you good, when one is covered, as you are, with the dust of the roads and railways.”
“Dust from railways; what do you mean?”