"Majesty," she said, thinking only of her own grief, "have you lost a son?"
The Queen's eyes filled, her lips trembled like a child's.
"I have lost one son," she said, "and a dear little daughter."
Then Madame von Stork remembered, and forgot her grief for the first time.
The Queen's face changed. She looked as if the whole sorrow of Prussia had crushed her.
"But, dear Madame," she said, her figure drooping, "I am the Queen, and I have lost your son and every Prussian woman's son, also. Am I not the Mother of my People? You have lost one son. I, the Queen, have lost thousands. Each mother's grief is mine and, oh, my God, how am I to bear it? Was not your Wolfgang mine, also?"
She touched her heart beating quickly beneath her dress.
"Dear Madame, pity your Queen and believe her. Here is a wound which nothing can heal. It has ached day and night since the battle of Jena. I am Rachel, indeed, weeping for my children."
When the Professor met his wife an hour later, a new look shone in her eyes.
"I was forgetting you, dear Richard," she said, "Wolfgang is gone, Franz is gone, but I have you and the children."