“You were married?” she asked. “You loved your husband?”
“Yes,” said the landlady, bursting into tears, “I was married, and God knows that I loved my husband. For twenty years we lived happy and peacefully together, and when he died last year, my whole happiness died with him.”
“He was sick, I suppose, and you nursed him?”
“He was sick for a month, and I did not leave his bedside either by day or by night.”
“Well, then, what would you have replied to him who would have tried to keep you back from your husband’s death-bed, and to persuade you to leave him in his agony, because it might have injured your health? Would you have listened to him?”
“No, I should have believed him, who had made such a proposition to me, to be my enemy, and should have replied to him: ‘It is my sacred right to stand at my husband’s death-bed, to kiss the last sigh from his lips, to close his eyes, and no one in the world shall prevent me from doing so!’”
“Well, then, dear mother, I say as you have said: it is my sacred right to stand at my husband’s death-bed and to close his eyes. My husband’s death-bed is in Braunau; I am not so happy as you have been; I cannot nurse him, nor be with him and comfort him in his agony; but I am able, at least, to see him in his last hour. My mother, will you still ask your daughter to stay here and take care of her health, instead of going to her husband’s death-bed in Braunau?”
“No, my daughter,” exclaimed the landlady, “no; I say to you, go! Take not a minute’s rest until you reach your husband. God will guide and protect you, for He is love, and has mercy on those whose heart are filled with love! Go, then, with God; but, for the sake of your husband, take some nourishing food; try to eat and sleep, so as to gain fresh strength, for you will need it.”
“Give me some nourishing food, mother, I will eat,” said Anna, placing her arms tenderly around the landlady’s neck; “I will try also to-night to sleep, for you are right: I shall need my whole strength! But after I have eaten, I may set out at once, may I not?”
“Yes, my poor, dear child, then you may set out. Now come to my room—your meal is already waiting for you.”