"It cannot be: it is not true: she is not dead. She is surely coming up the steps now. How is it possible that a being can remain away from those who love her so? I have one request to make. I wish you would give the pretty dresses to Madame Johanna and Fraulein Christiane; a few of the work-day clothes you can give to me, and the good woollen dress you can give to Carl's mother. Let no one else have any of her clothes. It would grieve me to the heart to know that a strange person was wearing anything that she had worn. Whoever wears a dress of hers can neither think an evil thought nor do an evil deed."
My son Ludwig wrote a letter, in which he lamented my wife's death with all the feeling of which a son is capable, and yet spoke of death as a wise man should. My daughter Johanna lost the letter. I think she must have destroyed it on account of the heresies it contained.
My consolation is that I have been found worthy of the perfect love of so pure a being; that, of itself, is worth all the troubles of life. Let what may come hereafter, what I have experienced cannot be taken from me.
I have had a tomb-stone placed at her grave. It has two tablets on one are the words:
"HERE LIES
IPHIGENIA GUSTAVA WALDFRIED,
Born December 15th, 1807,
Died July 23d, 1867."
On the other, my name shall one day be placed.