It was already dark, and still we waited in vain.

At last some one rang.  Our mother hurried to the door—­a thing she never did.

When we, too, ran into the hall, she had her arms around the child who had incurred such danger, and we little ones kissed her also, and Martha looked especially pretty in her happy astonishment at such a reception.

She, too, had been anxious enough while good Heinrich, General Maeyer’s servant, who had been his faithful comrade in arms from 1813 to 1815, brought her home through all sorts of by-ways.  But they had been obliged in various places to pass near where the fighting was going on, and the tender-hearted seventeen-year-old girl had seen such terrible things that she burst into tears as she described them.

For us the worst anxiety was over, and our mother recovered her composure.  It was perhaps advisable for her, a defenceless widow, to leave the city, which might on the morrow be given over to the unbridled will of insurgents or of soldiers intoxicated with victory.  So she determined to make all preparations for going with us to our grandmother in Dresden.

Meanwhile the fighting in the streets seemed to have increased in certain places to a battle, for the crash of the artillery grapeshot was constantly intermingled with the crackling of the infantry fire, and through it all the bells were sounding the tocsin, a wailing, warning sound, which stirred the inmost heart.

It was a fearful din, rattling and thundering and ringing, while the sky emulated the bloodsoaked earth and glowed in fiery red.  It was said that the royal iron foundry was in flames.

At last the hour of bedtime came, and I still remember how our mother told us to pray for the king and those poor people who, in order to attain something we could not understand, were in such great peril.

ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS: 

Child cannot distinguish between what is amusing and what is sad
Child is naturally egotistical
Deserve the gratitude of my people, though it should be denied
Half-comprehended catchwords serve as a banner
Hanging the last king with the guts of the last priest
Readers often like best what is most incredible
Smell most powerful of all the senses in awakening memory

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