Caroline was the first to recover. Carl's health and strength were on the final ebb--the long, slow ebb that made of his last years one dismal tragedy, which only his superb devotion to his wife and his immitigable optimism could brighten. In July, 1820, they decided to take a tour. They met with great success, but he found his weakness almost unbearable. At Hanover, he and Caroline were both prostrated, and could not join in the concert planned. On the road to Bremen, the postilion fell asleep and the coach was overturned into the ditch. The driver was stunned and the sick Carl had himself to revive the man, untie the baggage from the roof, unharness the horses, put everything in place again, and drive the postilion to the next station. At Hamburg, Caroline was too ill to continue the tour; she was about to become a mother, and Carl was compelled to go on without her, but he wrote her daily letters full of devotion. It was the first separation of their married life. Later she rejoined him, and at Hamburg, the oyster entered once more into Weber's domestic career. The Brunetti had cured him of his love for her by her inordinate fondness for bivalves. Caroline, on the other hand, hated them. But Weber said: "There can be no true sympathy between us while you detest a food I relish. For the love of me, swallow this oyster." The first three were a severe trial, but, as the French might say, "Ce n'est pas que la première huitre qui coute." Afterward Weber would groan, "Alas, why did I ever teach you the trick?" In 1821, there rose a famous operatic war between Spontini and Weber at Berlin. Caroline was prostrated with terror. Spontini's "Olympic" was given first with enormous success, and "Der Freischütz," in which Caroline had had so large a share, and which meant so much to the two, was forced into a dramatic comparison. In spite of a somewhat dubious beginning, the first night was one of the greatest ovations a musician has ever lived to see. In the midst of the tempestuous applause, every one looked for the composer, who was "sitting in a dark corner of his wife's box and kissing away her tears of joy." When they returned to Dresden in July, Caroline's health was undermined by the emotions of the Berlin triumph, and it was necessary for her to be taken to Switzerland, where Carl was compelled to leave her. An accident in crossing the Elbe led him to write his will, leaving Caroline everything without reserve, and his dying curse upon any one who should disturb his wishes. Now consumption began to fasten its claws more deeply on him, and when his wife returned she found him constantly racked with cough and fever. One day he saw the first fatal spot of blood upon his handkerchief; he turned pale and sighed: "God's will be done."