r in which I should again see
Ludwig. But now the sad thought that had floated across my mental
horizon soothed my excited nerves.

Ludwig had sent me his photograph from Paris, in order that I might
recognize him at once.

He had placed the pictures of his wife and of his son in the same
package.

I read over his last two letters again.

In a letter from Paris, dated Sunday, April 24th, he wrote:

"Here I am in the midst of the hubbub in which the 'saviour of the
world' is permitting the people to vote. It is truly a demoniac art,
this power of counterfeiting the last word of truthfulness. In order
that nothing may remain uncorrupted, the ministers declare that the
question of the day is to secure tranquillity to the land for the
future, so that, both on the throne and in the cottage, the son may
peacefully succeed his father. The last lingering traces of modesty and
purity are being destroyed; the last remnant of piety is appealed to in
order to carry out the deceit.

"How glad I should be, on the other hand, to bathe my soul in the pure
waves of great harmonies. The thought that I shall enter my Fatherland
in time to assist in celebrating the Centennary of Beethoven's birth is
an inspiring and an impressive one to me."

Joseph was at Bonn, awaiting the expected guests. He was again
successful in combining high objects with business profits; he
concluded a contract to build the festival building out of trees from
the Black Forest.

I looked at Ludwig's picture, and it seemed to me, indeed, as if I were
looking at my father in his youth. All generations seemed to be
combined in one, as if there were no such thing as time.

Martella came into the room, dressed in her Sunday attire.

"Good-morning, father," said she. "To-day you will hear somebody else
say, 'Good-morning, father.'"

I could not help wondering how Martella would appear to Ludwig. She
seemed new to me. It seemed as if during the four years that she had
been with us she had become taller and more slender. She wore the
pearl-colored silk dress that had been my wife's, and had about her
throat the red coral necklace that Bertha had sent her. Her
unmanageable brown hair was arranged in the form of a coronet; and her
walk and carriage were full of grace and refinement. Her face seemed
lengthened, instead of being as round as it had once been; and her old
defiant expression had given way to one of gentleness. Indeed, since
the death of Gustava, a