This is what he wrote in his diary on the very morning of the occurrence: "Oh,almighty God!What is going to become of me?For the last fortnight I have been drawn into disorder,and have not been able to compel myself to look fixedly either backward or forward in my life,so that from the 4th of June up to the present hour my journal has remained empty.Yet every day I might have had occasion to praise Thee,O my God,but my soul is in anguish.Lord,do not turn from me;the more are the obstacles the more need is there of strength."In the evening he added these few words to the lines that he had written in the morning:--"Desolation,despair,and death over my friend,over my very deeply loved Dittmar."This letter which he wrote to his family contains the account of the tragic event:--"You know that when my best friends,A.,C.,and Z.,were gone,Ibecame particularly intimate with my well-beloved Dittmar of Anspach;Dittmar,that is to say a true and worthy German,an evangelical Christian,something more,in short,than a man!An angelic soul,always turned toward the good,serene,pious,and ready for action;he had come to live in a room next to mine in Professor Grunler's house;we loved each other,upheld each other in our efforts,and,well or ill,bare our good or evil fortune in common.On this last spring evening,after having worked in his room and having strengthened ourselves anew to resist all the torments of life and to advance towards the aim that we desired to attain;we went,about seven in the evening,to the baths of Redwitz.A very black storm was rising in the sky,but only as yet appeared on the horizon.E.,who was with us,proposed to go home,but Dittmar persisted,saying that the canal was but a few steps away.God permitted that it should not be I who replied with these fatal words.So he went on.
The sunset was splendid:I see it still;its violet clouds all fringed with gold,for I remember the smallest details of that evening.
"Dittmar went down first;he was the only one of us who knew how to swim;so he walked before us to show us the depth.The water was about up to our chests,and he,who preceded us,was up to his shoulders,when he warned us not to go farther,because he was ceasing to feel the bottom.He immediately gave up his footing and began to swim,but scarcely had he made ten strokes when,having reached the place where the river separates into two branches,he uttered a cry,and as he was trying to get a foothold,disappeared.
We ran at once to the bank,hoping to be able to help him more easily;but we had neither poles nor ropes within reach,and,as Ihave told you,neither of us could swim.Then we called for help with all our might.At that moment Dittmar reappeared,and by an unheard-of effort seized the end of a willow branch that was hanging over the water;but the branch was not strong enough to resist,and our friend sank again,as though he had been struck by apoplexy.Can you imagine the state in which we were,we his friends,bending over the river,our fixed and haggard eyes trying to pierce its depth?My God,my God!how was it we did not go mad?
"A great crowd,however,had run at our cries.For two hours they sought far him with boats and drag-hooks;and at last they succeeded in drawing his body from the gulf.Yesterday we bore it solemnly to the field of rest.
"Thus with the end of this spring has begun the serious summer of my life.I greeted it in a grave and melancholy mood,and you behold me now,if not consoled,at least strengthened by religion,which,thanks to the merits of Christ,gives me the assurance of meeting my friend in heaven,from the heights of which he will inspire me with strength to support the trials of this life;and now I do not desire anything more except to know you free from all anxiety in regard to me."Instead of serving to unite the two groups of students in a common grief,this accident,on the contrary,did but intensify their hatred of each other.Among the first persons who ran up at the cries of Sand and his companion was a member of the Landmannschaft who could swim,but instead of going to Dittmar's assistance he exclaimed,"It seems that we shall get rid of one of these dogs of Burschen;thank God!"Notwithstanding this manifestation of hatred,which,indeed,might be that of an individual and not of the whole body,the Burschen invited their enemies to be present at Dittmar's funeral.
A brutal refusal,and a threat to disturb the ceremony by insults to the corpse,formed their sole reply.The Burschen then warned the authorities,who took suitable measures,and all Dittmar's friends followed his coffin sword in hand.Beholding this calm but resolute demonstration,the Landmannschaft did not dare to carry out their threat,and contented themselves with insulting the procession by laughs and songs.
Sand wrote in his journal:
"Dittmar is a great loss to all of us,and particularly to me;he gave me the overflow of his strength and life;he stopped,as it were,with an embankment,the part of my character that is irresolute and undecided.From him it is that I have learned not to dread the approaching storm,and to know how to fight and die."Some days after the funeral Sand had a quarrel about Dittmar with one of his former friends,who had passed over from the Burschen to the Landmannschaft,and who had made himself conspicuous at the time of the funeral by his indecent hilarity.It was decided that they should fight the next day,and on the same day Sand wrote in his journal.
"To-morrow I am to fight with P.G.;yet Thou knowest,O my God,what great friends we formerly were,except for a certain mistrust with which his coldness always inspired me;but on this occasion his odious conduct has caused me to descend from the tenderest pity to the profoundest hatred.