ad gone
there to persuade her to sing in his "Elijah," which had as yet only
been performed in England, and was now to be heard in Leipsic; he also
wanted her advice and help in putting together a new book of his songs.
I pass over the anxiety of the next weeks, the partial recovery, to be
followed only by relapse and aggravated symptoms.

From the 1st of November we knew that the worst was to be feared. My
parents were not often away from the house of sickness. In the morning
of the fatal day, at four o'clock, I went to the Koenigstrasse to get the
latest news; I had to return hopeless through the dark and foggy night.
Later in the day I was again for some hours in the house, but was not
allowed to see the dying man. From two o'clock in the afternoon, the
hour when another paralytic stroke was dreaded, he gradually began to
sink. Cecile, his brother Paul, David, Schleinitz, and my father were
present, when at twenty-four minutes past nine he expired with a deep
sigh.

The next day Cecile wrote to my mother asking her to order the mourning
for the children; she would let her know when she could see her. Some
days elapsed, the funeral service had been held and the remains had been
transferred to Berlin, when she wrote again asking my mother to come and
to bring me. We went. Outwardly we found her calm and resigned, but one
could read in her countenance that she was mortally wounded. She talked
of him she had lost and showed us a deathbed drawing that his
brother-in-law Hensel had made. For a time his manuscripts remained
untouched; the door of his study she kept locked.

"Not a pin, not a paper," she wrote, "could I bring myself to move from
its place. That room must remain for a short time my sanctuary; those
things, that music, my secret treasure."

It was with feelings of deep emotion that I entered the room when,
shortly afterwards, she opened its door for me. I had asked and obtained
permission to make a water-colour drawing of that study, whilst all yet
stood as the master had left it. On the right was the little
old-fashioned piano on which he composed so many of his great works;
near the window the writing-desk he used to stand at. On the walls
water-colours by his own hand--Swiss landscapes and others. On the left
the busts of Goethe and Bach, placed on the bookcases which contained
his valuable musical library.

Whilst I was painting, Cecile came and went. Not a sigh, not a murmur
escaped her lips.

She