The Leopoldstadt was in frightful condition.  Wrecked boats and broken tools were lying in the streets, while the cellars of some houses were still filled with water covered with floating furniture.  In order to avoid the crowd I stepped aside toward a gate that stood ajar; as I brushed by it yielded, and in the passageway I beheld a row of dead bodies, which had evidently been picked up and laid out there for official inspection.  Here and there I could even see unfortunate victims inside the rooms, still clinging to the iron window bars.  For lack of time and men it was absolutely impossible to take an official census of so many fatalities.

Thus I went on and on.  On all sides weeping and tolling of funeral bells, anxious mothers searching for their children and children looking for their parents.  At last I reached Gardener’s Lane.  There also the mourners of a funeral procession were drawn up, seemingly at some distance, however, from the house I was bound for.  But as I came nearer I noticed by the preparations and the movements of the people that there was some connection between the funeral procession and the gardener’s house.  At the gate stood a respectable looking man, somewhat advanced in years, but still vigorous.  In his high top-boots, yellow leather breeches, and long coat, he looked like a country butcher.  He was giving orders, but in the intervals conversed rather indifferently with the bystanders.  I passed him and entered the court.  The old gardener’s wife came toward me, recognized me at once, and greeted me with tears in her eyes.  “Are you also honoring us?” she said, “Alas, our poor old man!  He’s playing with the angels, who can’t be much better than he was here below.  The good man was sitting up there safe in his room; but when the water came and he heard the children scream, he jumped down and helped; he dragged and carried them to safety, until his breathing sounded like a blacksmith’s bellows.  And when toward the very last—­you can’t have your eyes everywhere—­it was found that my husband had forgotten his tax-books and a few paper gulden in his wardrobe, the old man took an axe, entered the water which by that time reached up to his chest, broke open the wardrobe and fetched everything like the faithful creature he was.  In this way he caught a cold, and as we couldn’t summon aid at once, he became delirious and went from bad to worse, although we did what we could and suffered more than he did himself.  For he sang incessantly, beating time and imagining that he was giving lessons.  When the water had subsided somewhat and we were able to call the doctor and the priest, he suddenly raised himself in bed, turned his head to one side as though he heard something very beautiful in the distance, smiled, fell back, and was dead.  Go right up stairs; he often spoke of you.  The lady is also up there.  We wanted to have him buried at our expense, but the butcher’s wife would not allow it.”