The war took its course. We received very sad letters from the Dedopali; she was worried about her two sons, who had gone with the army.
Suddenly there arose the rumor that the plague had broken out in a place not far away. That filled us with real dismay. When the news came I burst out in self-reproaches.
“Oh, where have I brought you? It is my fault that you came here, My Own.”
He comforted me: “Not for a moment have I regretted it. If only nothing happens to you! But even if we must perish now, still we have had our share of happiness.”
The pestilence, however did not spread. The fate of being carried off by the terrible angel of destruction, to which we had resigned ourselves, was spared us.
In other respects things were going very badly with us. In the disorder caused by the events of the war no one any longer thought of taking lessons, and we were fearfully pinched. There were days when we actually made the acquaintance of the specter Hunger. But everything that befell us, whether joy or sorrow, brought us closer and closer together, and later we were grateful to Fate for having enriched us with such experiences. Without doubt they were essential to the strengthening of our characters, and to educating us into that sympathy with the sorrows of humanity, with the wretchedness of the people, which in days to come formed the basis of our united work in the service of mankind, and which awakened in each of us feelings that gave delight to the other.
The war moved toward its end. On March 3, 1878, the Peace of San Stefano was signed. The Dedopali’s two sons had come out unscathed; the older—with the rank of colonel—had fought at Plevna in the emperor’s suite; the younger, then a captain, had taken part in the storming of Kars. In Kutais many families were in mourning. The returning sotnias (“hundreds”) did not return as hundreds.
Our family at home were greatly rejoiced that the war had spared us. My mother-in-law had gone with her two daughters Luise and Mathilde to spend the winter in Florence, because the latter was ill with a severe cough and the physician had prescribed a mild climate. In the spring, on their way home, they stopped at Meran, and from there came the news that Mathilde’s condition had grown worse; that she was suffering from severe attacks of fever, and her life was in danger. A few days later came the tidings of her death. Not yet twenty years old, and so beautiful and so worshiped by her mother ... how could that mother bear such a blow!
They say she looked like an angel on her bier with a wreath of roses on her golden hair unbound and streaming down on both sides. The remains were brought back to Harmannsdorf—it must have been a sad journey for the poor mother—and from there were transferred to the family vault in Höflein.
The news brought us deep grief, and we wept bitterly for the sister so prematurely snatched away from us, with whom we had spent many happy hours, and who had always stood lovingly by us.