Something strange happened today. It is the day on which she always sent me flowers. And the flowers came again as — as if nothing had changed. They came with the first mail, in a long, narrow white box. It was quite early, and I was still sleepy. And only when I was actually opening the box did I gain full consciousness. Then I almost had a shock. There lay, daintily tied with a golden string, violets and pinks. They lay as in a coffin. And as I took the flowers in my hand a shudder went through my heart. But I understand how it is that they came again today. When she felt her illness, possibly even when she felt death approaching, she gave her usual order to the florist so that I would be sure to notice her attention. Certainly, that is the explanation - as something quite natural, as something touching perhaps. And still as I held them in my hands, these flowers, and they seemed to nod and tremble, then, in spite of reason and will power, I looked upon them as something ghostly, as if they had come from her, as if they were her greeting — as if she wanted always, even now that she was dead, to tell me of her love — of her tardy faithfulness. Ah, we do not understand death, we will never understand it, and a person is dead only after all that have known him have also passed away. Today I grasped the flowers differently than usual, as if I might injure them were I to hold them too tight — as if their souls might begin to sob softly. And as they now stand in front of me on my desk, in a narrow, light-green vase, they seem to nod their heads in mournful gratitude. All the pain of a useless yearning spreads over me from them, and I believe that they could tell me something if we could only understand the language of all living things, not only of the things that talk.