In joyous crowds the young soldiers thronged the carriages; others had been before me to deck their caps, their tunics, even their horses and cannons, with bright violet asters of every shade. The prodigious radiance of sunset fell over all those flowers, enhancing their beauty, as though even the heavens were doing their utmost to render more blessed the departure of those eager boys, who so gayly were going to death. Hurriedly I ran toward the moving carriages, distressed at being late. A great shout mounted from a thousand throats as they recognized me and a shower of flowers fell at my feet. From their caps, their tunics, their cannons they tore away the flowers that had been given them to shower them over their Queen, while the usual chorus mounted to the skies: "May you become Empress--Empress of all the Rumanians."... And always more flowers fell over me; my arms were full; my hands could hardly hold them; the ground was purple where I stood.... Long did I remain there after the train had disappeared. A trail of smoke against the orange sky alone marked its passage, and all those fading flowers at my feet. As one looks at the incomprehensible, I gazed at those two long rails running into the infinite, there seeming to join their separate ways, and wondered toward what fate those youths were hurrying; wondered if their dream would be realized; especially I wondered how many would come back.... 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.