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With such thoughts in my mind I tossed and turned on my bed for a few long nights, then all at once I took courage again, comforted myself anew with the hope of help from above, committed my affairs to Heaven - and went on as before. From time to time, indeed, I deliberated as to whether and in what degree I was to blame for my present circumstances. But alas! How natural it is for a man in such a case to justify himself. Not that I could reproach myself with actual extravagance or debauchery, but only with my own particular careless, credulous and incapable way of life. For in the first place I had never learnt how to deal with money, nor had I any pleasure in it except in the spending of it day by day. Secondly, I would trust any rascal if he only gave me good words, and even now an honest face could cheat me out of my last farthing. Finally, and worst of all, neither my wife nor I understood the markets, and we were continually buying or selling at the wrong time.
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, and was ashamed to show her face for bearing a child in these sorrowful times. Yes, and soon she herself might well have convinced me of a similar sentiment. In September, when the bloody flux was widespread all about us, it entered into my house too, and first struck down my dear firstborn child. From the first hour that he took to his bed, he would take nothing to eat or drink, save water from the spring, and in a week he was a corpse. Only God knows what I felt at this blow. Such a sweet-natured child, that I loved with all my heart! to see him suffer such a painful illness as patiently as a lamb, by day and night - for it never gave him a moment's rest. In his last moments he drew me down towards him with his small hands that were already cold, kissed me once with his dying lips and weeping quietly, said haltingly: "Dear father! It's all over. Come after me soon. Now I'm going to be a little angel in heaven". Then he struggled with death and was gone. I felt as if my heart within me was breaking into a thousand pieces. The bitter lamentations over this first attack of the great Destroyer in my house are recorded in my diary.My little son was still unburied when the raging sickness seized my eldest daughter, and with even greater violence (but it might be that the poor child did not stand her suffering as bravely as her brother). And in short, despite all the skill of the doctors, she was taken from us even more quickly, she in her eighth year and the boy in his ninth. This disease was so loathsome to me, that I could not endure it without horror, even in the case of my own children.
And now, with the little girl only lately dead, and myself half crazed from watching, anxiety and grief, it began to tear at my body also, and I had almost wished a thousand times to die and go hence with those I loved. At the earnest pleading of my wife, however, I went to Doctor Wirth. He prescribed rhubarb and other things. As soon as I was home I had to take to my bed. Violent cramps and flux came on, and the medicine seemed to double the pains. The doctor himself came to visit me, he saw my weakness, but not my fear. God, time and eternity, my sins of the flesh and of the spirit stood before me and at my bedside in dreadful guise. No sleep, not for so much as a minute, death and the grave, dying, and dying without peace of mind, what anguish! Day and night I tossed and turned on my bed, writhing like a worm, and, just as of old, I might not reveal my state of mind to anyone. I prayed to Heaven, but doubts as to whether I should be heard smote me for the first time, and I had a more lively dread than ever that even if I should recover, it was no longer possible that I could obtain all the help that I needed.
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. Since she could not care for all of us, her unmarried sister came to help her, and moreover her courage and steadfastness greatly exceeded mine. For my part I endured a few more days of hellish torment from both my bodily pain and the terrors of my imagination, until at last in an hour of grace I was able to commend myself and my concerns entirely to God, for Him to do according to His will. Until then I had been rather a sullen invalid, now I let everyone do with me94
This date should be 1771 - the child was born in November, see below.
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It is possible that her pregnancy gave her some immunity.
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