On August 25 the prison governor importuned me at once with his conversation, expressing his belief that I entertained an evil opinion of the Queen. He inferred it from this: the day before he had said to me that His Majesty had ordered that whatever I desired from the kitchen and cellar should be at once brought to me, to which I had answered, ‘God preserve His Majesty; he is a good sovereign; may he show clemency to evil men!’ He had then said, ‘The Queen is also good,’ to which I had made no answer. He had then tried to turn the conversation to the Queen, and to hear if he could not draw out a word from me; he had said: ‘The Queen is sorry for you that you have been so led away. It grieves her that you have willed your own unhappiness; she is not angry; she pities you.’ And when I made no answer, he repeated it again, saying from time to time, ‘Yes, yes, my dear lady, it is as I say.’ I was annoyed at the talk, and said, ‘Dieu vous punisse!’ ‘Ho, ho!’ he said, misinterpreting my words, and calling Karen, he went out and closed the doors. Thus unexpectedly I got rid of him. It was ridiculous that the woman now wanted to oblige me to attend to what the prison governor had said. I begged her to remember that she was now not attending on a child (she had before been nurse to children). She could not so easily depart from her habit, and for a long time treated me as a child, until at length I made her comprehend that this was not required.
When I perceived that my stomach desired food and could retain it, I became impatient that I could not die, but must go on living in such misery. I began to dispute with God, and wanted to justify myself with Him. It seemed to me that I had not deserved such misfortune. I imagined myself far purer than David was from great sins, and yet he could say, ‘Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency. For all the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning.’ I thought I had not deserved so exceedingly great a chastisement as that which I was receiving. I said with Job, ‘Show me wherefore thou contendest with me. Is it good unto thee that thou shouldest oppress, that thou shouldest despise the work of thine hands?’ I repeated all Job’s expressions when he tried to justify himself, and it seemed to me that I could justly apply them to myself. I cursed with him and Jeremiah the day of my birth, and was very impatient; keeping it, however, to myself, and not expressing it aloud. If at times a word escaped me, it was in German (since I had generally read the Bible in German), and therefore the woman did not understand what I was saying. I was very restless from coughing, and turned from side to side on the bed. The woman often asked me how I was. I begged her to leave me quiet and not to speak to me. I was never more comfortable than in the night when I observed that she was sleeping; then, unhindered, I could let my tears flow and give free vent to my thoughts. Then I called God to account. I enumerated everything that I had innocently suffered and endured during my life, and I enquired of God whether I had deviated from my duty? Whether I ought to have done less for my husband than I had done? Whether the present was my recompense for not having left him in his adversity? Whether I was to be now tortured, tormented, and scorned for this? Whether all the indescribable misfortunes which I had endured with him were not enough, that I had been reserved for this irremediable and great trouble? I do not wish to conceal my unreasonableness. I will confess my sins. I asked if still worse misfortunes were in store for me for which I was to live? Whether there was any affliction on earth to be compared to mine? I prayed God to put an end to my sufferings, for it redounded in no wise to his honour to let me live and be so tormented. I was after all not made of steel and iron, but of flesh and blood. I prayed that He would suggest to me, or inform me in a dream, what I was to do to shorten my misery.
When I had long thus disputed and racked my brains, and had also wept so bitterly that it seemed as if no more tears remained, I fell asleep, but awoke with terror, for I had horrible fancies in my dreams, so that I feared to sleep, and began again to bewail my misery. At length God looked down upon me with his eye of mercy, so that on August 31 I had a night of quiet sleep, and just as day was dawning I awoke with the following words on my lips: ‘My son, faint not when thou art rebuked of the Lord; for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.’ I uttered the last words aloud, thinking that the woman was sleeping; possibly she awoke at the moment, and she asked me whether I wished for anything. I answered ‘No.’ ‘You were speaking,’ she said, ‘and you mentioned your stockings; I could not understand the rest.’ I replied, ‘It must have been then in my sleep. I wish for nothing.’
I then lay quietly thinking. I perceived and confessed my folly, that I, who am only dust and ashes, and decay, and am only fit for the dunghill, should call God to account, should dispute with my Creator and his decrees, and should wish to censure and question them. I began to weep violently, and I prayed fervently and from my heart for mercy and forgiveness. While I had before boasted with David, and been proud of my innocence, now I confessed with him that before God there is none that doeth good; no, not one. While before I had spoken foolishly with Job, I now said with him that I had ‘uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me which I knew not.’ I besought God to have mercy on me, relying on his great compassion. I cited Moses, Joshua, David, Jeremiah, Job, Jonah, and others, all highly endowed men, and yet so weak that in the time of calamity they grumbled and murmured against God. I prayed that He would in his mercy forgive me, the frailest of earthen vessels, as I could not after all be otherwise than as He had created me. All things were in his power; it was easy to Him to give me patience, as He had before imparted to me power and courage to endure hard blows and shocks. And I prayed God (after asking forgiveness of my sins) for nothing else than good patience to await the period of my deliverance. God graciously heard me. He pardoned not only my foolish sins, but He gave me that also for which I had not prayed, for day by day my patience increased. While I had often said with David, ‘Will the Lord cast off for ever? and will he be favourable no more? Is his mercy clean gone for ever? doth his promise fail for evermore? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Hath He in anger shut up his tender mercies?’ I now continued with him, ‘This is my infirmity, but I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High.’ I said also with Psalm cxix.: ‘It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.’
The power of God was working within me. Many consolatory sentences from the Holy Scriptures came into my mind; especially these:—‘If so be that we suffer with Christ, that we may be also glorified together.’ Also: ‘We know that all things work together for good to them that love God.’ Also: ‘My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.’ I thought especially often of Christ’s words in St. Luke, ‘Shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily.’ I felt in my trouble how useful it is to have learned psalms and passages from the Bible in youth. Believe me, my children, that it has been a great consolation to me in my misery. Therefore, cultivate now in your youth what your parents taught you in childhood; now, while trouble visits you less severely, so that when it comes, you may be ready to receive it and to comfort yourselves with the Word of God.
I began by degrees to feel more at peace, and to speak with the woman, and to answer the prison governor when he addressed me. The woman told me sundry things, and said that the prison governor had ordered her to tell him everything that I spoke or did, but that she was too wise to do such a thing; that she understood now better than she had done at first how to behave. He went out, but she remained shut up with me, and she would be true to me. And as it appeared that I did not at once believe what she said, she swore it solemnly, and prayed God to punish her if ever she acted falsely towards me. She stroked and patted my hand, and laid it against her cheek, and begged that I would believe her, using the words, ‘My dearest lady, you can believe me; as truly as I am a child of God, I will never deceive you! Now, is not that enough?’ I answered, ‘I will believe you;’ thinking at the same time that I would do and say nothing but what she might divulge. She was very glad that she had induced me to speak, and said, ‘When you lay so long silent, and I had no one with whom I could speak, I was sad, and determined that I would not long lead this life, even if they gave me double as much, for I should have become crazed. I was afraid for you, but still more for myself, that my head would give way.’
She went on talking in this way, introducing also various merry stories. When she was young she had been in the service of a clergyman, who encouraged his domestics in the fear of God, and there she had learned prayers and sentences from the Bible by heart; she knew also the Children’s Primer, with the explanatory remarks, and sang tolerably well. She knew in some measure how she should walk before God and behave towards her neighbour; but she acted contrary to her knowledge—for she had a malicious temper. She was an elderly woman, but she liked to reckon herself as middle-aged. It appeared that in her youth she had been pretty and rather dissolute, since even now she could not lay aside her levity, but joked with the tower-warder, and the prison governor’s coachman, a man of the name of Peder, and with a prisoner named Christian (more will presently be said with regard to this prisoner; he was free to go about the tower).[69]
Maren Blocks often sent me a message through this coachman, besides various kinds of candied sugar and citron, letting me know from time to time whether anything new was occurring. All this had to be done through the woman. One day she came in when the doors were closed, and brought me a message from Maren Blocks, saying, ‘My lady, if you will now write to your children in Skaane, there is a safe opportunity for you to do so.’ I answered, ‘My children are not in Skaane, yet if I can send a message to Skaane, I have a friend there who will probably let me know how it fares with my children.’ She gave me a piece of crumpled paper and a pencil. I wrote a few words to F. Margrete Rantzow,[E24] saying that she probably knew of my miserable condition, but supposing that her friendship was not lessened by it, and begging her to let me know how my children were, and from what cause they had come to Skaane, as I had been informed was the case, though I did not believe it. This was what I wrote and gave to the woman. I heard nothing further of it, and I imagine that she had been ordered to find out to whom I wrote, &c. (They have been busy with the idea that some of you, my dear children, might come to Skaane.) I sewed up the letter or slip of paper in such a manner that it could not be opened without making it apparent. I asked the woman several times if she knew whether the letter had been sent away. She always answered that she did not know, and that with a morose expression, and at last she said (when I once more asked her to enquire of Peder), ‘I suppose that the person who ought to have it has got it.’ This answer made me reflect, and since then I asked no further.
I remained all this time in bed, partly because I had nothing with which to beguile the time, and partly because of the cold, for no stove was placed in my prison till after the New Year. Occasionally I requested the woman to manage, through Peder, that I should have a little silk or thread, that I might beguile the time by embroidering a piece of cloth that I had; but the answer I received was that he dared not. A long time afterwards it came to my knowledge that she had never asked Peder for it. There was trouble enough, however, to occupy my thoughts without my needing to employ the time in handiwork.
It was on September 2 that I heard some one moving early overhead, so I asked the woman if she knew whether there was a chamber there (for the woman went up every Saturday with the night-stool). She answered that there was a prison there like this, and outside was the rack (which is also the case). She observed that I showed signs of fear, and she said, ‘God help! Whoever it is that is up there is most assuredly to be tortured.’ I said, ‘Ask Peder, when the doors are unlocked, whether there is a prisoner there.’ She said she would do so, and meanwhile she kept asking herself and me who it might be. I could not guess; still less did I venture to confess my fear to her, which she nevertheless perceived, and therefore increased; for after she had spoken with Peder, about noon,[70] and the doors were locked, she said, ‘God knows who it is that is imprisoned there! Peder would tell me nothing.’ She said the same at the evening meal, but added that she had asked him, and that he would give no answer. I calmed myself, as I heard no more footsteps above, and I said, ‘There is no prisoner up there.’[71] ‘How do you know that?’ she asked. ‘I gather it from the fact,’ I said, ‘that since this morning I have heard no one above; I think if there were anyone there, they would probably give him something to eat.’ She was not pleased that my mind was quieted, and therefore she and Peder together endeavoured to trouble me.