"Not so very far off, Cousin Elsè," she said. "I often think it is very near. If it were not so, how could the angels be so much with us and yet with God?"
"But life seems so long, now Fritz is gone."
"Not so very long, Cousin Elsè," she said. "I often think it may be very short, and often I pray it may."
"Eva!" I exclaimed, "you surely do not pray that you may die?"
"Why not?" she said, very quietly. "I think if God took us to himself, we might help those we love better there than at Eisenach, or perhaps even in the convent. And it is there we shall meet again, and there are never any partings. My father told me so," she added, "before he died."
Then I understood how Eva mourns for Fritz, and why she does not weep; but I could only say—
"O Eva, do not pray to die. There are all the saints in heaven: and you help us so much more here!"
February 8.
I cannot feel at all reconciled to losing Fritz, nor do I think I ever shall. Like all the other troubles, it was no doubt meant to do me good; but it does me none, I am sure, although of course, that is my fault. What did me good was being happy, as I was when Fritz came back; and that is passed for ever.
My great comfort is our grandmother. The mother and Eva look on everything from such sublime heights; but my grandmother feels more as I do. Often, indeed, she speaks very severely of Fritz, which always does me good, because, of course, I defend him, and then she becomes angry, and says we are an incomprehensible family, and have the strangest ideas of right and wrong, from my father downward, she ever heard of; and then I grow angry, and say my father is the best and wisest man in the Electoral States. Then our grandmother begins to lament over her poor, dear daughter, and the life she has led, and rejoices, in a plaintive voice, that she herself has nearly done with the world altogether; and then I try to comfort her, and say that I am sure there is not much in the world to make any one wish to stay in it; and, having reached this point of despondency, we both cry and embrace each other, and she says I am a poor, good child, and Fritz was always the delight of her heart, which I know very well;—and thus we comfort each other. We have, moreover, solemnly resolved, our grandmother and I, that, whatever comes of it, we will never call Fritz anything but Fritz.