“8 Friedrich St., Mar. 30, 1863, 1 A.M.
“Dear Countess,—I must tell my grief to some one, but why to you? Have I any right to do so? No; but I have an irresistible impulse. You will feel with me. I know you will.
“If you had known her who is dying you would have loved her. That soft heart, that clear intellect, that joyous temper—all her dignity and worth—all is now destined for the grave. No hope! I have spent the whole day at her bedside, and am going to spend the night also up here—her last night. She has suffered much, poor thing. Now she is quiet. Her powers are failing. Her pulse is already almost stopped. Besides me there are watching in her room her sister and a physician.
“Ah! this terrible separation! Death! One knows, it is true, that it must happen to every one; and yet one can never rightly take in that it may reach those whom we love also. What this mother of mine was to me I cannot tell you. She knows that she is dying. When I arrived this morning she received me with an exclamation of joy. ‘So that is you! I see you once more, my Fritz. I did so fear you would come too late.’ ‘You will get well again, mother,’ I cried. ‘No! No! There is nothing to say about that, my dear boy. Do not profane our last time together with the usual sick-bed consolations. Let us bid each other good-bye.’
“I fell sobbing on my knees at the bedside.
“ ‘You are crying, Fritz. Look! I am not going to say to you the usual “Do not weep”. I am glad that your parting from your best and oldest friend gives you pain. That assures me that I shall long live in your remembrance. Remember that you have given me much joy. Except the anxiety which the illnesses of your childhood caused, and the torture when you were on campaign, you have given me none but happy feelings, and have helped me to bear every sadness which my lot has laid on me. I bless you for it, my child.’ And now another attack of her pain came on. It was heartrending to see how she cried and groaned, how her features were distorted. Yes! Death is a fearful, a cruel enemy; and the sight of this agony called back to my recollection all the agonies which I had witnessed on battlefields and in the hospitals. When I think that we men sometimes hound each other on to death gratuitously and cheerfully, that we expect youth in the fulness of its strength to offer itself willingly to this enemy, against whom even weary and broken old age yet fights desperately—it is revolting!
“This night is fearfully long. If the poor sufferer could only sleep! but she lies there with her eyes open. I pass constantly the space of half-an-hour motionless by her bedside; and then I slip off to this sheet of paper, and write a few words, and then back again to her. In this way it has come to four o’clock. I have just heard the four strokes pealing from all the clock towers—it strikes one as so cold, so unfeeling, that time is striding on steadily and unerringly through all eternity, while at this very moment for one warmly-loved being time must stop—for all eternity. But by how much the colder, the more unfeeling, the universe seems to our pain, by so much the more longingly do we fly back to another human heart which we believe is beating in unison with our feelings. And therefore it is that this white sheet of paper, which the physician left lying on the table when he wrote his prescription, attracted me, and therefore it is that I send you this letter.
“Seven o’clock. It is over.
“ ‘Farewell, my dear boy.’ Those were her last words. Then she closed her eyes and slept. Sleep soundly, my dear mother. In tears I kiss your dear hands.
“Yours in deadly sorrow,