"While the earth decks itself with verdure and brings forth new life, it receives the dead. Let no one dare come to me again and say that he understands the world and life!
"Where is the professor?"
My wife was the only one who could quiet Annette, and she said, "If I could only go with you!"
"You will be with me in spirit, I am sure," replied Annette.
She extended her hand to my wife, saying, "I can assure you of this: I will so conduct myself, that you could at any moment say to me, 'This is right.'--I have been wild and wayward; I am so no longer; hereafter, I will be strong and gentle."
The carriage drove up and we accompanied Annette down the hill as far as the saw-mill.
There was a rainbow over our heads; it reached from our mountains to the Vosges.
Annette held a handkerchief to her eyes. My wife and Bertha were walking on either side of her.
The only time I heard her speak was when she said to Bertha:
"Your husband has lost his best comrade. The Major will live; there shall yet be some happy ones on earth. I shall write you from the camp."