"A boat remained to me which the officer had not noticed, and which, therefore, had not been seized. Noémi, Almira and I got into it, and I rowed myself over to the ownerless island. I had never used an oar before, but necessity taught me.
"When I touched this piece of ground, a wonderful feeling took possession of me: it was as if I had forgotten what had happened to me out in the world. I was surrounded by a pleasant silence and rest, which softened my heart.
"After I had explored pasture, grove, and meadow, I knew what I should do here. In the field bees were humming, in the woods hazel-nuts were hanging, and on the surface of the river floated water-chestnuts. Crabs basked on the shore, edible snails crept up the trees, and in the marshy thickets manna was ripening. Kind Providence, Thou hast spread a table before me! The grove was full of wild fruit--seedlings; the blackbirds had brought seeds from the neighboring island, and already the wild apples grew rosy on the trees, and the raspberry bushes bore a few belated berries.
"Yes, I knew what I would do on the island. I alone would make of it a Garden of Eden. The work to be done here could be managed by a single person, one woman, and then we should live here like the first man in Paradise.
"I had found the rock with its natural grottoes, in the largest of which a layer of hay was spread, which must have served as a bed to my poor husband. I had a widow's right to it; it was my legacy. I hushed my child to sleep there, made it a couch in the hay, and covered it with my large shawl. Then I told Almira to stay there and watch over Noémi till I came back, and rowed across to the large island again. On the veranda of my old summer-house there was an awning spread out, which I took down; it would serve as a tent or roof, and perhaps later on be used for winter clothing. I packed in it what food and vegetables I could see, and made a bundle as large as I could carry on my back. I had come to the house in a four-horse wagon richly laden; with a bundle on my back I left it; and yet I had been neither wicked nor a spendthrift. But what if even that bundle were stolen goods? It is true that the contents were my own; but that I should carry them off, was it not theft? I hardly knew: notions of right and wrong, the legal or the illegal, were confused in my head. I fled with the bundle like a thief out of my own home. On my way through the garden I took a cutting of each of my beautiful fruit-trees, and shoots from the figs and bushes, picked up some seeds from the ground and put them in my apron; then I kissed the drooping branches of the weeping willow under which I had so often dozed and dreamed. Those happy dreams were gone forever. I never went back there. The boat took me safely along the Danube.