he 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.

I have had a tomb-stone placed at her grave. It has two tablets on one
are the words:

"HERE LIES
IPHIGENIA GUSTAVA WALDFRIED,
_Born December 15th, 1807_,
_Died July 23d, 1867_."

On the other, my name shall one day be placed.

BOOK THIRD.

CHAPTER I.

Life is indeed a sacred trust. I now began to feel that great and noble
duties yet claimed me.

I had b