Otto wrote in the margin of the letter, “Italy is a paradise! Here the heavens are three times as lofty as at home. I love the proud pine-trees and the dark-blue mountains. Would hat everybody could see the glorious objects!”
Wilhelm added to this, “What he writes about the Italian heavens is stupid stuff. Ours at home is just as good. He is an odd person, as you very well know!
“‘Addic! A rivederci!’”
CHAPTER XLVI
“Thou art master in thy world.
Hast thou thyself, then thou hast all!”
—WAHLMANN.
In the summer of 1834 the friends had been absent for two years. In the last year, violet-colored gillyflowers had adorned a grave in the little country church-yard.
“A heart which overflowed with love,
Was gone from earth to love and God,”
were the words which might be read upon the grave-stone.
A withered bouquet of stocks had been found by Louise, with the certificate of Eva’s birth and her hymn-book. These were the flowers which Wilhelm had given her that evening at Roeskelde. Among the dry leaves there lay a piece of paper, on which she had written,—“Even like these flowers let the feelings die away in my soul which these flowers inspire it with!”
And now above her grave the flowers which she had loved sent forth their fragrance.