“Quick; get up. Netty, get everything ready. Frederick is almost dying with impatience to see you.”
“Frederick—my Frederick?”
How often had I during these last days called out this name, and with what pain! But now it was a cry of joy—for now I had comprehended. It was no dream. I had been away and come back again, and was to see my husband.
A quarter of an hour afterwards I went into his room, alone. I had requested that no one should go with me. No third person should be present at our meeting.
“Frederick!” “Martha!” I rushed to the couch on which he lay and sobbed on his bosom.
CHAPTER XIII.
My delight in the restoration of my husband.—The war practically at an end: but the Prussians continue their advance on Vienna—Life at Grumitz.—Military education.—My brother Otto.—Description of the flight of a routed corps.—Peace imminent.—Victory of Lyssa.—Plans for the future.—Conrad’s return.—The soldier’s delight in war.
THIS was the second time in my life that my beloved husband had been restored to me from the dangers of war.
Oh! the blessedness of having him once more with me. How was it that I, just I, had succeeded in emerging out of the flood of woe in which so many had sunk, on to a safe and happy shore? Happy for those who in such circumstances can raise their eyes with joy to heaven and send up warm thanks to their Guide above. By this thanksgiving, which, because it is spoken in humility, they take to be humble, and of which they have no conception how arrogant and self-important it is in reality, they feel themselves relieved, inasmuch as they have, according to their own opinion, given a sufficient discharge for the benefit which has accrued to them, and which they call grace and favour. I could not put myself in that position. When I thought of the wretches whom I had seen in those abodes of misery, and when I thought of the lamentable mothers and wives whose dear ones had been hurried into torture and death by the same destiny as had so favoured me—when I thought of this I found it impossible to be so immodest as to take this favour as having been sent by God, and one for which I was entitled to give thanks. It appeared to me that just as, a little while before, Frau Walter, our housekeeper, had swept her broom over a cupboard on which a swarm of ants who scented sugar were collected, so fate had swept over the Bohemian battlefields. The poor busy black things were mostly crushed, killed, scattered; but a few remained uninjured. Now, would it have been reasonable and proper in them if they had sent up their heartfelt thanks for this to Frau Walter? No. I could not entirely banish the woe out of my heart by means of the joy of meeting again, however great that were. I neither could nor did I wish to do so. I was not able to help—to dress wounds, nurse, wait on the sick—like those sisters of mercy and the courageous Frau Simon had done; my strength was not sufficient for that. But the mercy which consists in compassion, that I had offered up to my poor brother-men, and that I could not withdraw from them again in my selfish contentment. I could not forget.
But if I might not triumph and give thanks yet I well might love—might clasp the beloved one to my heart with a hundredfold the former tenderness. “Oh Frederick, Frederick!” I repeated amidst our tears and caresses, “have I got you again?”