Bettina
as a young girl.
In
the previous entry, Konstantinos Schinas had to tell his wife's
parents about her long and serious illness in Athens in the hot summer of 1835. Now in this final letter written two weeks later (25 August/5 September),
he tells them about her death.
* * * * * *
I
wrote to you the 18th via the Austrian Embassy and I didn’t sense
the horrible, the uncurable catastrophe ahead for me and you.
In
the morning of the 24 at 1 ½ o’clock my angel, your only daughter
closed her beautiful eyes -- pious, patient, loving Bettina after a
sickbed of 38 days while she was thinking only of her saviour and her
parents, her glance turned to heaven, repeating for more than an hour
“Forgive me everything, everything”.
Alas,
dear parents! Everybody without exception shared the dolour of this
unexpected disaster, friends, Christina, Stephan and all helpers
still are inconsolable; all of our relatives and siblings who will
get this horrible message very soon will be weeping bitterly for a
long time over this irreplacable enormous loss, but they will eventually find
relief from their pain. Only you dear precious parents, and me the husband of the most excellent creature, will no instance,
no time ever deliver from this pain. I have loved this invaluable angel more than 10 years, not in confidence to gain possession of her, but
with a hope not impossible to realize.
Finally
there was the time to make long-nourished wishes true, I travelled to
Ancona, alas, a year ago to bring the beautiful bride home, but no, to
her grave. The subject of my adoration, 10 years desired, my lover,
my wife, my guardian angel was allowed to me less than 10 months, now
she is the Lord’s bride. She is in heaven and we unfortunates -- on
this earth of mourning, in this deceiving joyless world. I will love
her till my grave, but now hopeless
on earth;
only one hope is left to be reunited with her in one grave and in
another world. Until the Lord helps me to this fortune I will
continue living with her, try to guess her will and fulfill it
faithfully and painstakingly according to my powers and so find
little and poor comfort. I’ll do my timing all of the year related
to her. My holidays will be the days meaningful to her or us, her
birthday, her day of baptism, her confirmation, the day we first met,
the day I first declared myself to her, the day of our separation in
Berlin, the reunion in Ancona, our wedding day. The days when she
led a serious conversation with me, gave me a fruitful advice, spoke
to me a holy word will be my days of devotion. The correspondence
with you will be part of these sweet duties, parents of my angel who
is resting in God.
Alas! I swear by her who adored you, who
thought of you with burning desire till the end of her life, who had
no wish but fulfilling your will completely, by the only and beloved
daughter who is now watching us from above, to consider myself
forever as your son, her orphaned husband, the most lamentable of all
men, and will keep up the correspondence with you as faithful and
reliable as your beloved passed away daughter did. There will not be
the diversity like before, because why should you further be
interested in Greece, which now keeps only the mortal remains, but no
longer the beautiful soul of the precious child. But it will be of
greatest interest for you, because for years I will be able to tell
about the magnificent, the devotional, the loving, the brilliant I
keep of her. And you too will always want to communicate about her to
me. That is what I ask and confidentially expect of you in her
blessed name, to continue your parental love for me, who will never
stop to be connected with your daughter, as well as the regular
correspondence like with her. Alas! Should there be little comfort
thinkable, Bettina must always be considered as being alive with us,
her death may not alter inner relations, everything must stay like
she never stopped to be with us.
I realize that I did not yet continue the account of the cruel
disease which I gave you only till the 18 of the month.
I
told you in my last letter she was getting better, only suffering the
so called bed-sore which had started healing, there
was no anxiety for her life anymore but a long convalescence to be expected; but this unfortunate abscess obviously had undermined all
her life powers. The physicians (Dr. Röser and Ipitis) decided for a
China decoction as a restorative agent, because out of exhaustion she
developed a lethargy (meanwhile also Dr. Rösler became ill). The
result were severe convulsions in the middle of the night; Ipitis
helped again with calmatives, but a night or 2 later there were
alarming palpitations; I didn’t know about this but was informed by
the Bavarian nurse, like the doctor, 16 hours later (which was
Friday, Aug 21, 6-7 o’clock in the evening). That evening the
doctor did nothing about it.
The following day (Saturday) he
arrived only at half past 9 and ordered digitalis, finally at 6 in
the afternoon he ordered a Spanish
fly
at
her neck and another medicine, to stop the awful enlargement of her
heart by diversion. These drugs arrived after 1 ½ hours from the
king’s pharmacy which is rather far away. They were applied and
seemed to show effects in the beginning (specially the Spanish fly);
but this was a delusion, human help was too late anyway. After 8, her
breathing started to get very hard, she couldn’t speak though she
was obviously fully aware; at 11 her death struggle began, at 1 ½
after midnight the angel passed away repeating many times the words
"Everything, everything, everything."
Madame
Hill, who lives quite far away was informed immediately and she came
right away with an older Englishwoman and with our Bavarian (or Wurttembergian) nurse Babett Wimmersberger washed the
beautiful corpse, put her back on the bed where she had died and
left.
The
angel’s face was so lovely, so moving, so heavenly like I never saw
one before, not only in the first hours after she had passed away but
also the whole Monday (24) through until past midnight. Her beautiful
eyes were closed like asleep, her mouth not fully closed so the
pearls of her fair teeth could gleam; one could imagine she wants to
speak or smile chastely and lovely like she often did. Only after
midnight, i. e. after 24 hours decay began, a little blood and water
flew out of her mouth, and in the morning (Tuesday) an odour was
sensible, the eyes were not disfigured but the half moons under them
a little distorted, the mouth and the beautiful front remained
unaltered. The odour intensified but stayed tolerable.
The
procession was to leave the house at 7 ½ in the morning and head for
the church of St. Irene. Many friends who wanted to accompany the one
in eternity came earlier and wanted to see her; the day before many
had come to see her and admired the holy calm of her angel’s face;
but the day of the funeral I did not give permission to see her
anymore because on the occasion of speaking to me about the funeral
of Minister Brockhausen Bettina once told me no unintentionally “
horrbile to see such a distorted corpse and to keep in mind such a
displeasing impression, specially if the deceased is dear and
precious to us. When I die, II would never want to be a subject of
disgust. My body must only be seen as long as it is looking human.”
On the occasion of the death of a little, in Greece born child of v.
Lesuire she repeated this remark.
That
is why I let nobody in and when the Greek clergy arrived I took only
one priest into the room to read a short prayer after which I put the
one in eternal immediately into the very beautiful coffin which was
closed directly.
The
procession then went to the church, Hill wearing his robe followed the
Greek clergy. Inside the church (of Saint Irene) only the Greek
priests (7 of them) said the prayers, then the procession set off
again to the cemetery which is at least half an hour outside the
city. On the way the odour increased because it was one of the
hottest days (but also the last very hot one); the coffin was carried
by 8 strong, very beautiful and very well dressed young men who
rotated often.
Arriving,
the coffin was put down in front of the grave, the Greek clergy said
the last prayer, then Mr. Hill said the prayers of the Anglican
Church with dignity and emotion and so the angel was buried in the
earth. Her body now lies quietly beyond the temple of Jupiter and
her beautiful soul has reached the superior destination which
she was longing for.
Bettina,
age 5.
Previous entries for Bettina Schinas:
