ld sit up, I hastened to inform Monsieur Goulden, by
letter, that I was in the hospital of Halle, in one of the five
buildings of Leipzig, slightly wounded in the arm, but that he need
fear nothing for me, for I was growing better and better. I asked him
to show my letter to Catharine and Aunt Gredel to comfort them in the
midst of such fearful war. I told him, too, that my greatest happiness
would be to receive news from home and of the health of all whom I
loved.

From that moment I had no rest; every morning I expected an answer, and
to see the postmaster distribute twenty or thirty letters in our ward,
without my receiving one, almost broke my heart; I hurried to the
garden and wept. There was a little dark corner where they threw
broken pottery--a place buried in shade, which pleased me much, because
no one ever came there--there I passed my time dreaming on an old
moss-covered bench. Evil thoughts crossed my brain--I almost believed
that Catharine could forget her promises, and I muttered to myself,
"Ah! if you had not been picked up at Kaya! All would then have been
ended! Why were you not abandoned? Better to have been, than to
suffer thus!"

To such a pass did I finally arrive, that I no longer wished to
recover, when one morning the letter-carrier, among other names, called
that of Joseph Bertha. I lifted my hand without being able to speak,
and a large, square letter, covered with innumerable post-marks, was
handed me. I recognized Monsieur Goulden's handwriting, and turned
pale.

"Well," said Zimmer, laughing, "it is come at last."

I did not answer, but thrust the letter in my pocket, to read it at
leisure and alone. I went to the end of the garden and opened it. Two
or three apple-blossoms dropped upon the ground, with an order for
money, on which Monsieur Goulden had written a few words. But what
touched me most was the handwriting of Catharine, which I gazed at
without reading a word, while my heart beat as if about to burst
through my bosom.

At last I grew a little calmer and read the letter slowly, stopping
from time to time to make sure that I made no mistake--that it was
indeed my dear Catharine who wrote, and that I was not in a dream.

I have kept that letter, because it brought, so to speak, life back to
me. Here it is as I received it on the eighth day of June, 1813:

"MY DEAR JOSEPH:--I write you to tell you I yet love you alone, and
that, day by day, I love you more.