The flashes of lightning succeeded each other so rapidly that they blinded me; I could see nothing more. I closed my eyes and held fast to a rock by the wayside. I had never heard such fearful roaring of the thunder, or seen such uninterrupted flashes of lightning. I stood still and concluded to wait there, while I thought of the many other beings who were also exposed to this storm; and at last, I could weep. I had not wept since her death, and now it did me good. The hail beat into my face, already wet with tears. Suddenly Rothfuss appears and exclaims: "Martella sends me. Oh, God be praised! there is a good bed waiting for you at home." Guided by Rothfuss, I reached the house. Although my family were greatly concerned as to the effect it might have, the shock that I had undergone had really benefited me. I slept until noon, and when I arose I felt as if breathing a new life. I must stop here. I cannot go on. I was obliged to learn how to begin life anew. When one has buried his dearest love in the earth, the earth itself becomes a changed world, and one's step upon it a different one. I trust that I shall not be obliged hereafter to repeat my lamentations for my own life. The first tranquillizing influence I found was in the statue gallery, with its figures from another world, so silent, so unchanging. We can offer them nothing, and yet they give us so much: they are without life or color, but they represent life in its imperishable beauty. Rothfuss offered me a strange solace. He said, "Master, there must be another woman somewhere in this world just as she was." "Why?" "I always thought that God only suffered the sun to shine because she was here, but I see that the sun still shines, and so there must be others like her." Martella, however, could not realize that she was dead. "It cannot be: it is not true: she is not dead. She is surely coming up the steps now. How is it possible that a being can remain away from those who love her so? I have one request to make. I wish you would give the pretty dresses to Madame Johanna and Fraulein Christiane; a few of the work-day clothes you can give to me, and the good woollen dress you can give to Carl's mother. Let no one else have any of her clothes. It would grieve me to the heart to know that a strange person was wearing anything that she had worn. Whoever wears a dress of hers can neither think an evil thought nor do an evil deed." My son Ludwig wrote a letter, in which he lamented my wife's death with all the feeling of which a son is capable, and yet spoke of death as a wise man should. My daughter Johanna lost the letter. I think she must have destroyed it on account of the heresies it contained. My consolation is that I have been found worthy of the perfect love of so pure a being; that, of itself, is worth all the troubles of life. Let what may come hereafter, what I have experienced cannot be taken from me.