Page:Lay down your arms - the autobiography of Martha von Tilling.djvu/436

CHAPTER XIX.

Serious mental illness, consequent on my husband's death.—This recurs occasionally.—Conclusion of my diary.—Additions to "The Protocol of Peace".—Progress of the Peace movement.—Mr. Hodgson Pratt's letter.—The Emperor Frederick's manifesto.—I write the last word of my autobiography.—My grandson's christening.—My daughter's engagement.—Rudolf's speech at the christening.—"Hail to the Future!"—Finis.

When for the first time I came to myself again peace had been concluded and the Commune was over. I had been in bed for a month ill, nursed by my faithful Mrs. Anna, without any consciousness of being alive. And what the illness was I know not to the present day. The people about me called it considerately "typhus," but I believe that it was simply—madness.

So much I darkly recall, that the last interval had been filled with imaginations of crackling shots and blazing conflagrations; probably the events which were spoken of in my presence mingled in my phantasy with the truth, the battles, that is, between the Versaillese and the Communards, and the incendiary fires of the Petroleuses. That, when I recovered my reason and with it the knowledge of my deep misery, I did not do myself some harm, or the pang did not kill me, probably was due to my possession of my children. Through them I could, for them I was forced, to live. Even before my illness, on the very day when that terrible thing broke over me, Rudolf kept me alive. I was shrieking aloud, on my knees, while I repeated: "Die! Die! I must die!" Then two arms

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