I thanked him warmly for this important and startling communication, and asked him if I might use it in my book. He replied: “Yes, it is for that purpose that I have related it to you. But not in detail, merely the main features. Proposal for peace on the dualistic basis, united attack upon France, and the reconquest of Alsace.”
I then asked once more whether he wished to read the book before it went to press, and he said: “Yes, in order that you may not include anything false in my epitaph.”
I: “That would certainly not be done intentionally. You know that I worship you, and would let myself be cut into a thousand pieces for you.”
He: “Ah, no; not into so many! It is not necessary.”
I: “Well then, only into two pieces, so that one might see half a Büschlein (little Busch) fall to the right and half to the left!”
On my then begging him as soon as his health permitted to let Löscher and Petsch come to take his portrait, he promised to do so, adding: “If they do not care to come, then the other man can—what’s his name?”
I: “Brasch, here in the Wilhelmstrasse, at the corner of the Leipzigerstrasse.”
He: “But I must first keep my word.”
I: “I did not ask you to do anything contrary to it. I only thought of Brasch because he took a very good photograph of my late son.”
He: “How did the thing happen?” I then related shortly the circumstances of my son’s death.