caused her tears to flow, the only ones most certainly, but today they fall heavily upon my heart. And now friendship speaks to me this day the very same language that did of old her love. Shall I yet remain deaf? Ought I to cede to or resist the voice which now speaks to me? O Albert! you on whom was accomplished, in the room where I am, and in that arm-chair that I now look on, so incomprehensible a mystery, cannot you come in aid of the most faithful friend that your family ever had!" And the excellent baron, letting himself be carried away by his emotion, found himself, without knowing how, on his knees before that chair in whose arms Albert had died; and the head covered by his hands, and the heart filled with the thirst for truth, he prayed: "O my God!" prayed he, "if it is true that you are not a vain creation of the weakness or of the pride of man; if it is true that you continue to watch with solicitude over the creature who has issued from your hands, you will not see without pity the heart full of trouble that I lift up toward you. Led astray by the habits begun in childhood, I have perhaps followed error thinking to follow the truth; but I have done it in all sincerity and through love of the truth. If I am deceived, O God! enlighten my trembling soul, dissipate the doubt which is crushing me, and draw toward you the soul that seeks you and desires you! And you, Gertrude, dear companion too soon lost to me, if you see my regrets that time cannot extinguish; and the tears that your memory costs me, ask of your God that he make himself known to me; ask him that I may adore him as you adored him, and, above all, ask him that I may again be united to you." {87}