"Only a simple 'Ja' do you ask. Such a tiny little word ... so weighty though ... could a heart, as full of unspeakable love as mine not speak this tiny little word with the whole soul? I do it and my soul whispers it for ever. The grief of my heart, the many tears, could I but describe them ... oh, no! Your plan seems to me risky, but a loving heart fears no obstacles. Therefore once more I say _yes_! Could God turn my eighteenth birthday into a day of mourning? Oh, no! that were far too gruesome. Ah, I have long felt 'it must be,' and nothing in the world shall make me waver, and I will convince my father that a youthful heart can also be steadfast. Very hastily, "Your CLARA." And now, letters began to fly as thickly as swallows at evening. She found a better messenger than Becker, in her faithful maid, "Nanny," whom she recommended to complete confidence: "So Nanny can serve as a pen to me." At last the lovers met clandestinely by appointment, as Clara returned from a visit to Emily List. Both were so agitated that Clara almost fainted, and Schumann was formal and cold. She wrote later: "The moon shone so beautifully on your face when you lifted your hat and passed your hand across your forehead; I had the sweetest feeling that I ever had; I had found my love again." It was in this time of frenzied enthusiasm, of alternate hope and despondency, that Schumann wrote the seventh of his "Davidsbündlertänze." The birthday came, and with it the letter went to Wieck: "It is so simple what I have to say to you--and yet the right words fail me constantly. A trembling hand will not let the pen run quietly.... To-day is Clara's birthday,--the day when the dearest being in the world, for you as for me, first saw the light of the world." He tells how through all the obstacles that had met their way he had deeply loved her and she him. "Ask her eyes whether I have told the truth. Eighteen months long have you tested me. If you have found me worthy, true and manly, then seal this union of souls; it lacks nothing of the highest bliss, except the parental blessing. An awful moment it is until I learn your decision, awful as the pause between lightning and thunder in the tempest, where man does not know whether it will give destruction or benediction. Be again a friend to one of your oldest friends, and to the best of children be the best of fathers." With this letter he enclosed one to Wieck's wife: "In your hands, dear lady, I lay our future happiness, and in your heart--no stepmotherly heart, I am sure."