Henriette von Willich to Schleiermacher.
[CCLXXXVI.] Sagard, 13th March, 1807.
Schleier! dear Schleier! my beloved friend! my father! Oh, my God! my God! how shall I tell it to you, and how shall you be able to hear it! Schleier, I am no more the happy Jette, whose pure felicity you bore in your heart, and at which you so tenderly rejoiced. My dear Schleier, prepare yourself to hear the worst; the happy Jette is now a poor, sorrowing, lonely, weeping Jette. Oh, my Schleier! let me then at once give utterance to the dreadful word. My Ehrenfried—my deeply, tenderly beloved Ehrenfried—is with me no more; he lives in another world. Oh, Schleier! can you realize it? Can you conceive that I have survived it? I cannot myself understand it, nor the composure with which I have borne it, and with which I still bear it. How I long to open my whole heart to you! Yes, Schleier, you have, indeed, cause to weep over me; but you may, nevertheless, be without anxiety. God supports me wonderfully. I do not despair, nor do I despond. I still live in the consciousness of his love, and my love. I bear him ever in my heart. I love him with all the energy, all the yearning tenderness that my soul is capable of. Oh, Schleier! in the midst of my anguish I have still rapturous moments when I have a vivid feeling of how we loved each other, and that this love is eternal, and that God cannot possibly destroy it, because God himself is love. Schleier, I will bear this life as long as nature wills it, for I must exert myself for his and my children; but, O God! with what longing, with what a presentiment of indescribable rapture, I look forward to the world in which he lives! What happiness would it not be to me to die! Schleier, shall I not find him again? Oh, my God! I implore you, by all that you love and hold sacred, if you can, give me the certainty that I shall find him again—that I shall recognize him! Tell me your innermost belief in regard to this, dear Schleier. Alas! it will be annihilation to me to lose this faith. In this I live; through this I bear with resignation and serenity; it is the only thing I look forward to, the only hope that sheds a faint glimmer of light on my darkened existence—to meet him again, to live again for him, to make him happy. O God! it is not possible; it cannot be destroyed, it is only interrupted. I can never again be happy without him. Oh, Schleier! speak to my poor heart; tell me what you believe. Ah! does he, perhaps, also long for me, remember me? Is he, perhaps, at times invisibly near me? Oh, my poor heart, how it is drawn hither and thither by hope and doubt! Yet no, the doubt does not extend beyond my thoughts; this I feel as a never-failing consolation, which can never desert me, that our love was divine, and that death cannot destroy it. Oh, my Schleier! how I long for you! You will be a comfort and a support to me. I feel such unbounded trust in you, I will tell you all that I experience during this time of sorrow. Oh, Schleier! how will not you also grieve for the faithful, beloved friend! Oh, how happy I was! With what joy I looked forward at his side to being once more a mother! Now I shall shed many tears over the little one’s cradle.
Only eight days my Ehrenfried was ill of a nervous fever. Alas! I was ever full of hope; I thought it impossible, I nursed him with such tender love, and he was always so gentle to me, so kind, so loving. Alas! the last days the fever was so violent that he was no longer conscious. Oh, bitter memory! and yet not unmixed with sweetness! How his love for me broke through his incoherent ravings! He gave me still sweet names, even after the illness had entirely obscured his mind. The last word that he spoke to me was, when I asked him if he no more knew his Jette: “Yes, Jette, my sweet bride!” Oh, Schleier! how significant and how true! His BRIDE, that I am!—oh! I will strive until I become worthy of being reunited with him, of being again entirely his… . . Do you know when I feel my grief most poignantly? When I think that in a future life there will be nothing left of the old, whoever shall be worthiest of him will be nearest to him—oh! and there are many of those that love him that are worthier than I—and when I think that his soul is dissolved, merged in the great All— that the past will not be recognized—that all is over—oh, Schleier! this I cannot bear—oh! speak to me, dear, dear friend!
Farewell, Schleier, I have so much to say to you; and yet, perhaps, I shall not write again for a long time. Nevertheless, you will know from this how I feel. I suffer much; but inward tranquillity and outward composure never fail me entirely.
Your JETTE.