The sun had set, the smoke had dissolved into nothing; the voices of my soldiers were but a remembrance ... slowly I turned my foot toward home....
III—"I BEND OVER THE SUFFERING FACES"
All day long I have been moving among the wounded, wandering from ward to ward—they all want me to come among them, each soldier desirous to see his Queen....
Never do I leave a call unanswered; everywhere do I go; no sight is too sad, no fatigue is too great, no way too long, but sometimes it is to me as though I were wandering through some never-ending dream.
Bed beside bed they lie there, and all eyes meet me, follow me, consume me; never before have I known what it means to be the prey of so many eyes.... They seem to be drawing my heart from my bosom, to be a weight I can hardly bear!
I bend over suffering faces, clasp outstretched hands, lay my fingers upon heated brows, gaze into dying eyes, listen to whispered words—and everywhere the same wish follows me: "May you become Empress—Empress of all the Rumanians!" Stiffening lips murmur it to me, hopeful voices cry it out to me; it goes with me wherever I move: "What matters our suffering as long as you become Empress—Empress of all the Rumanians!" Infinitely touching are the words when they mount toward me from the beds of so many wounded, who see in me the realization, the incarnation of the dream for which they are giving their lives.
It makes me feel so small, so humble before their stoic endurance; tears come to my eyes and yet, because of the beauty of it, I have a great wish to thank God.
Why should I be chosen to represent an ideal? Why should just I be the symbol? What right have I to stand above them, to buy glory with the shedding of their blood?...
And always more tenderly do I pass from bed to bed....
That was at a time when hope still sang in every soul, when in the first enthusiasm all hearts beat in unison, when belief in glorious victory gladdened the day....