Meantime the victorious army made no halt in its onward march. The Germans were already before the gates of Paris. The cession of Alsace and Lorraine was officially demanded; to which came the well-known reply: “Not an inch of our territory, not a stone of our fortresses”—(“Pas un pouce—pas une pierre”).
Yes, yes—thousands of lives, but not an inch of ground. That is the rooted idea of the patriotic spirit. “They wish to humble us,” cried the French patriots. “No! sooner shall exasperated Paris bury itself under its own ruins!”
Away! away! was now our resolution. Why should we stay in a beleaguered foreign city without any necessity; why live among people full of no other thoughts than those of hate and vengeance, who looked at us with sidelong glances and often with clenched fists, when they heard us talking German? It is true, we could no longer leave Paris, or leave France, without difficulty. One had in all directions to pass over war districts, the railway traffic was frequently suspended for private travellers. To leave our new building in the lurch was unpleasant, but this was of no consequence, for our stay was impossible. In fact we had already stayed far too long. The events which I had experienced recently had shaken me so much that my nerves had suffered grievously from it. I was seized often with shivering, and once or twice also with crying fits.
Our boxes were all ready packed, and everything prepared for departure, when I had another attack, and this time so violent that I had to be carried to bed. The physician who was sent for said that either a nervous fever or even an inflammation of the brain was commencing, and for the present it was not to be thought of to expose me to the fatigues of travelling.
I lay in bed for long, long weeks. Only a very dreamy recollection of that whole time remains with me. And strangely enough, a pleasant recollection. I was, it is true, very ill, and everything in the place where I resided was unceasingly mournful and terrible; and yet when I look back on it it was a singularly joyful time. Yes, joy, perfectly intense joy, such as children are in the habit of feeling. The cerebral affection which I was suffering, and which brought with it an almost continuous absence, or at least only half-presence of consciousness, caused all thoughts and judgments, all reflections and deliberations, to vanish out of my head, and there remained only a vague enjoyment of existence, just like that which children experience, as I said just now, and especially those children who are tenderly watched over. There was no want of tender watching for me. My husband, thoughtful and loving and untiring, was with me day and night. He brought the children also often to my bedside. How much my Rudolf had to tell me! For the most part I did not understand it, but his beloved voice sounded to me like music, and the babbling of our little Sylvia, our heart’s idol, how sweetly that began to charm me! Then there were a hundred little jokes and intelligences between Frederick and me about the tricks of our little daughter. What these jokes were about I have quite forgotten, but I know that I laughed and enjoyed myself quite unrestrainedly. Each one of the customary jests seemed to me the height of wit, and the oftener repeated the more witty and more precious; and with what delight did I not swallow the draughts given me—for every day at a given hour I took a glass of lemonade. Such nectar I have never tasted during my whole life of health; and how entirely refreshing was a medicine with opium in it, whose softly soothing action, putting me into a conscious slumber, sent a thrill of happy calm through my soul. I knew all the while that my beloved husband was by my side, protecting me and watching over me as his heart’s dearest treasure. Of the war, which was raging at my door, I had now hardly any cognisance; and if, for all that, some remembrance of it flashed on me sometimes, I looked on it as something situated as far away and as completely without any concern for me, as if it was being played out in China or on another planet. My world was here, in this sick-room, or rather in this chamber of recovery; for I felt myself getting better, and all tended to happiness.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
To happiness? No. With recovery, understanding came back too, and the perception of the horrors that surrounded us. We were in a beleaguered, famishing, freezing, miserable city. The war was still raging on.
The winter had come in the meantime—icy cold. I now, for the first time, learned all that had taken place during my long unconsciousness. The capital of “the brotherland,” Strasbourg—the “lovely,” the “true German,” the city “German to its core,” had been bombarded, its library destroyed. One hundred and ninety-three thousand seven hundred and twenty-two shots had been poured into the town—four or five a minute.
The country fell into wild despair—such a despair as issues in raving madness. People began to hunt in Nostradamus to find prophecies for the present events, and new seers began to put out fresh predictions. Still worse, possessed folks came forward. It was like falling back into a ghost-night of the middle ages, lighted by the fire of hell. “Oh that I could be among the Bedouins!” cried Gustave Flaubert. “Oh that I could be back in the half-conscious dreamland of my illness,” cried I, weeping. I was well again now, and had to hear and comprehend all the terrible things that were going on around us. Then began again the entries in the red books, and I have lit on the following notes:—