XXII AT HOME Departure from the Caucasus · First destination, Görz · Return to Harmannsdorf · Family life and neighborly visits · Literary correspondence · Writers’ convention in Berlin In May, 1885, nine years after our elopement, we returned home. Not without a pang did we say farewell to the Caucasus; we had grown very fond of the beautiful country, and our friends there also found it hard to let us go. But the delight, after such a long separation, of coming back “to our house” as a happy couple, who had proved their right to such happiness and had fought their way to a self-supporting profession,—this delight outweighed all the grief of leave-taking, and just as jubilantly as we had originally set sail from Odessa to carry our love and our passion for adventure to the legendary land of Colchis, so jubilantly did we set sail from Batum to cross the Black Sea once more: homeward—homeward! Our first destination in Europe was Görz, the place where lay my mother’s grave. There we desired to kneel before we returned to the Suttners’ paternal house. Therefore we went directly through Vienna without pausing, and it was only when that visit of pious sorrow had been paid that we turned our faces back to the north again. Then we spent one day in Vienna with Brother Karl, whose reception of us gave a foretaste of the welcome that was awaiting us. We appointed the next day for our arrival at Harmannsdorf. Artur begged that no one should come to meet us at the station, so that he might find all his dear ones at once in the Harmannsdorf that he so loved. So, then, at the station of Eggenburg only the family carriage was waiting for us. From Eggenburg to our destination is another three miles. Ah, that splendid drive! It was a sunny, fragrant May day; the song of larks in the air, red clover in the meadows, radiant joy in our hearts. The landscape in the distant mountain land, where, according to the myth, the earthly paradise was situated, was unquestionably grander and finer than this flat Lower-Austrian region—but this was home. A hundred sweet recollections arose in my mind, and doubtless a thousand in his; it was the abode of his youth and childhood. When we reached the place on the road where the tower of the castle becomes visible, he stretched out his left arm toward the horizon with a cry of joy, and with his right pressed me to him. “Willkommen zu Hause, mein Weib!” he said in a tone of deep emotion. It was the only time in his life that he called me “wife”; perhaps this is why that moment, with all its blessed solemnity, has remained so clearly impressed upon my mind. And now the arrival,—the entrance through the gate, the pause before the castle drawbridge, where the whole family was assembled,—well, we know from the Bible how it is usual to celebrate the return of the prodigal son.