A week had gone by.
The air was mild and but for the Virginia creeper that was already taking on its autumn red as it twined luxuriantly round the columns of the castle terrace, one might almost have believed that midsummer had returned and that the splendid celebration of three months ago, in which the whole of Angeln had joined, was about to take place once again. Not only was the sun, almost summer-like, shining brightly over the castle and park, as on the day that the Count and Countess had renewed their marriage vows; but, as before, long lines of carriages gave a festive air as they brought the many guests to the castle. Bells were tolling far and wide and the village girls stood casting flowers as for the wedding procession. But today they were strewing white asters and the person who was passing on her way from the castle was dead. Solemn music accompanied the coffin behind which were walking Holk and the children and then the long cortège of relatives and friends. Petersen was standing at the entrance to the church and led the procession to the open grave beside the tumbledown old family vault. The choir was silent and every head was bared as the coffin descended and the earth closed over Christine Holk. A heart that had yearned for peace had found it now at last.
Julie von Dobschütz to Superintendent-General Schwarzkoppen
Holkenäs, October 14th, 1861
Your Reverence wished to know about our friend whose death was the first news that you received after taking up your office. I am glad to be able to satisfy your wish because, in spite of my grief, it is a consolation and an inspiration to be able to speak of our dear dead friend.
On the day that you last saw her, a thought must have been ripening in her mind which she may well have conceived long before. You may perhaps recall the elegiac, almost melancholy, folk-song that Elizabeth Petersen sang that evening—Christine left the room almost immediately afterwards and I believe from that moment onwards, her resolution was made. I found her deeply affected and I admit that I was immediately seized with anxious forebodings, forebodings which I could only succeed in calming by recalling the Christian sentiments and religious convictions of our dear deceased—those Christian sentiments which bear us through life, for so long as it is God’s will.
The next day seemed to justify my belief. Christine told me that she had gone very late to bed but she showed no signs of tiredness, on the contrary, she had a freshness which I had not seen since her reconciliation with her husband. When she came down to breakfast, she was more affable and friendly than usual, indeed almost jovial, and she persuaded her husband to join a shooting party in two days’ time to which he had just received an invitation from Count Baudissin. Then, strangely enough, she talked about clothes in great detail, though only in connexion with Asta who, she said, now that she was over seventeen, must begin to think of “coming out” and as she said this I saw her eyes fill with tears.
The day went by and the sun was already quite low when she invited me to go for a walk with her along the beach. “But we must hurry,” she added, “or else it will be too dark.”
We went off straightaway down the terrace and when we were at the bottom, she said that she did not want to walk along the beach as the sand was so wet and her shoes so thin, so we went out on the jetty. She deliberately avoided mentioning any serious topic. When we finally reached the end-platform and the steps where the steamers tie up, we sat down on a wooden bench that the Count had recently had placed there and looked at the sun reflected in the sea, which was completely still, and at the magnificent colours of the clouds. “How beautiful it is,” said Christine. “Let’s wait here to see the sunset. But as it’s already getting cold, would you go and fetch our coats? But to save yourself the climb up to the terrace, just call up for them, Asta will certainly hear you.”
She said this with a touch of embarrassment, because it was not in her nature to tell a lie; but it would have struck me as strange had she not shown this embarrassment, because in her almost excessive kindness and goodness towards me, she was always most scrupulous about asking me to do favours for her. She saw, too, what was in my mind, but I still could hardly show her too plainly how anxious and worried I was and so I went back along the jetty and up to the terrace, because her suggestion about calling until Asta heard had obviously been an after-thought.
When I came back to the end of the jetty, I could see nothing of the Countess and I knew at once what had happened. I hurried back to fetch help, although I felt sure that it would be of no avail. The Count was stunned and did not know what to do. Finally, the alarm was given in the village and they searched the jetty and the beach until far into the night. Boats went out to search a shallow sandbank which lay some distance off the jetty but for hours there was no result and it was not until the following morning that some fishermen from Holkebye came up to the castle to announce that they had found the Countess. We all went down. Her face that for so long had borne the marks of silent suffering had been transfigured and she looked almost gay: so eagerly had her heart been longing for peace. A bier was brought from the church and to avoid the steepness of the terrace, she was carried over the dune and up the slope of the drive. The whole village accompanied her body in mourning, particularly the poor people to whom she had always shown such kindness and generosity, and some of them said bitter words against the Count that I hope he did not hear.
As for the burial and Petersen’s funeral address which, as I can testify, would have satisfied the most orthodox, you will have read about that in the Arnewieck Messenger which Baron Arne sent you and perhaps in the Flensburg Gazette as well.
I want only to add what you may consider proper concerning the state of mind of the Countess and what made her take the fatal step. As soon as we had brought her up from the beach, we went to her room to see whether she had left any farewell message. We did, in fact, find a number of sheets of paper on which a few words had been written showing that she had tried to say good-bye to her nearest and dearest—her husband and Baron Arne, as well as to me. On those addressed to the Baron and myself she had scribbled a few words such as “Thank you …” and “When you read these lines …” but they had been crossed out, and on the sheet addressed to Holk there was not even that. Instead, inside the sheet intended for him there was a piece of crumpled paper that had been carefully smoothed out again, on which was written the song that Elizabeth Petersen had sung immediately before Holk’s departure for Copenhagen and which had made such an impression on her on that occasion, just as recently the folk-song translated from the English which I mentioned earlier. This latter song your Reverence will surely still recall but the earlier one may have slipped your memory, in which case, if you will allow me, I should like to copy the first verse. This is how it goes:
Die Ruh’ ist wohl das Beste
Von allem Glück der Welt,
Was bleibt vom Erdenfeste,
Was bleibt uns unvergällt?
Die Rose welkt in Schauern,
Die uns der Frühling gibt,
Wer haßt, ist zu bedauern,
Und mehr noch fast, wer liebt.[1]
The last line had been almost invisibly underlined, and that gentle, almost timid underlining contains the story of a whole life.
Your position and your faith will give you strength to accept the death of our friend but I have lost all that was dearest to me in life and what now remains will be poor and empty. Asta asks to be remembered to you as does Elizabeth Petersen and
Your most respectful,
Julie von Dobschütz