For a long time that evening Mary sat in her room thinking about her sorrows, which, after the break caused by the day’s cares, seemed already to belong to the past. Now she could remember them and weep or pray. With mournful pleasure she lingered over her mental images of her father’s stroke and last moments. These mental pictures rose one after another to her memory, repelling with horror only the last one, the picture of his death. Mary wishes she would have gone into his sickroom to see him sooner, that had she done so perhaps he might have sooner expressed his love for her. These sad thoughts overwhelm Mary, and sobbing she cries out for her maid.
quote from the chapter:
From behind the door I heard how he lay down on his bed groaning and loudly exclaimed, ‘My God!’ Why didn’t I go in then? What could he have done to me? What could I have lost? And perhaps he would then have been comforted and would have said that word to me. And Princess Mary uttered aloud the caressing word he had said to her on the day of his death. Dear-est! she repeated, and began sobbing, with tears that relieved her soul. She now saw his face before her. And not the face she had known ever since she could remember and had always seen at a distance, but the timid, feeble face she had seen for the first time quite closely, with all its wrinkles and details, when she stooped near to his mouth to catch what he said.
Dear-est! she repeated again.
Book 10, Chapter 12
Mary tearfully recalls her father’s last days.
Summary:
For a long time that evening Mary sat in her room thinking about her sorrows, which, after the break caused by the day’s cares, seemed already to belong to the past. Now she could remember them and weep or pray. With mournful pleasure she lingered over her mental images of her father’s stroke and last moments. These mental pictures rose one after another to her memory, repelling with horror only the last one, the picture of his death. Mary wishes she would have gone into his sickroom to see him sooner, that had she done so perhaps he might have sooner expressed his love for her. These sad thoughts overwhelm Mary, and sobbing she cries out for her maid.
quote from the chapter:
From behind the door I heard how he lay down on his bed groaning and loudly exclaimed, ‘My God!’ Why didn’t I go in then? What could he have done to me? What could I have lost? And perhaps he would then have been comforted and would have said that word to me. And Princess Mary uttered aloud the caressing word he had said to her on the day of his death. Dear-est! she repeated, and began sobbing, with tears that relieved her soul. She now saw his face before her. And not the face she had known ever since she could remember and had always seen at a distance, but the timid, feeble face she had seen for the first time quite closely, with all its wrinkles and details, when she stooped near to his mouth to catch what he said.
Dear-est! she repeated again.
Click here to read full text of this chapter.
Please help improve this shared document by posting your suggested corrections, clarifications, and changes below. Thank you!