5

The Rutledge tavern was a rough, weather-beaten affair with nothing whatever to distinguish it from a thousand other log cabins along the frontier. A stranger would not have given it a second glance; but Lincoln could not keep his eyes off it now, nor his heart out of it. To him, it flled the earth and towered to the sky, and he never crossed the threshold of it without a quickening of his heart.

Borrowing a copy of Shakspere's plays from Jack Kelso, he stretched himself out on top of the store counter, and, turning over the pages, he read these lines again and again:

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

He closed the book. He could not read. He could not think. He lay there for an hour, dreaming, living over in memory all the lovely things Ann had said the night before. He lived now for only one thing—for the hours that he spent with her.

Quilting parties were popular in those days, and Ann was invariably invited to these affairs, where her slender fingers plied the needle with unusual swiftness and art. Lincoln used to ride with her in the morning to the place where the quilting was to be held, and call for her again in the evening. Once he boldly went into the house—a place where men seldom ventured on such occasions—and sat down beside her. Her heart throbbed, and a food of color rose to her face. In her excitement she made irregular and uncertain stitches, and the older and more composed women noticed it. They smiled. The owner kept this quilt for years, and after Lincoln became President she proudly displayed it to visitors and pointed out the irregular stitches made by his sweetheart.

On summer evenings Lincoln and Ann strolled together along the banks of the Sangamon, where whippoorwills called in the trees and frefies wove golden threads through the night. In the autumn they drifted through the woods when the oaks were faming with color and hickory-nuts were pattering to the ground. In the winter, after the snow had fallen, they walked through the forest, when—

Every oak and ash and walnut

Wore ermine too dear for an earl

And the poorest twig on the elm tree

Was ridged inch-deep with pearl.

For both of them, now, life had taken on a sacred tenderness, a new and strangely beautiful meaning. When Lincoln but stood and looked down into Ann's blue eyes her heart sang within her; and at the mere touch of her hands he caught his breath and was amazed to discover that there was so much felicity in all the world....

A short time before this, Lincoln had gone into business with a drunkard, a preacher's son, named Berry. The little village of New Salem was dying, all its stores were gasping for breath. But neither Lincoln nor Berry could see what was happening, so they bought the wrecks of three of these log-cabin groceries, consolidated them, and started an establishment of their own.

One day a mover who was driving out to Iowa halted his covered wagon in front of the Lincoln & Berry store. The roads were soft, his horses were tired, and the mover decided to lighten his load. So he sold Lincoln a barrel of household plunder. Lincoln didn't want the plunder, but he felt sorry for the horses; he paid the mover ffty cents, and without examining the barrel rolled it into the back room of the store.

A fortnight later he emptied the contents of the barrel out on the floor, idly curious to see what he had bought. There, at the bottom of the rubbish, he found a complete edition of Blackstone's Commentaries on Law; and started to read. The farmers were busy in their fields, and customers were few and far between, so he had plenty of time. And the more he read, the more interested he became. Never before had he been so absorbed in a book. He read until he had devoured all four volumes.

Then he made a momentous decision: he would be a lawyer. He would be the kind of man Ann Rutledge would be proud to marry. She approved his plans, and they were to be married as soon as he completed his law studies and established himself in the profession.

After finishing Blackstone he set out across the prairies for Springfield, twenty miles away, to borrow other law-books from an attorney he had met in the Black Hawk War. On his way home he carried an open book in one hand, studying as he walked. When he struck a knotty passage, he shuffed to a standstill, and concentrated on it until he had mastered the sense.

He kept on studying, until he had conquered twenty or thirty pages, kept on until dusk fell and he could no longer see to read.... The stars came out, he was hungry, he hastened his pace.

He pored over his books now incessantly, having heart for little else. By day he lay on his back, reading in the shade of an elm that grew beside the store, his bare feet angling up against the trunk of the tree. By night he read in the cooper's shop, kindling a light from the waste material lying about. Frequently he read aloud to himself, now and then closing the book and writing down the sense of what he had just read, revising, rephrasing it until it became clear enough for a child to comprehend.

Wherever Lincoln went now—on his rambles along the river, on his walks through the woods, on his way to labor in the felds—wherever he went, a volume of Chitty or Blackstone was under his arm. Once a farmer, who had hired him to cut frewood, came around the corner of the barn in the middle of the afternoon and found Lincoln sitting barefooted on top of the woodpile, studying law.

Mentor Graham told Lincoln that if he aspired to get ahead in politics and law he must know grammar.

“Where can I borrow one?” Lincoln asked.

Graham said that John Vance, a farmer living six miles out in the country, had a copy of Kirkham's Grammar; and Lincoln arose immediately, put on his hat, and was off after the book.

He astonished Graham with the speed with which he masteredKirkham's rules. Thirty years later this schoolmaster said he had taught more than fve thousand students, but that Lincoln was the “most studious, diligent, straightforward young man in the pursuit of knowledge and literature” he had ever met.

“I have known him,” said Mentor Graham, “to study for hours the best way of three to express an idea.”

Having mastered Kirkham's Grammar, Lincoln devoured next Gibbon's “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” Rollin's “Ancient History,” a volume on American military biography, lives of Jefferson, Clay, and Webster, and Tom Paine's “Age of Reason.”

Dressed in “blue cotton roundabout coat, stoga shoes, and pale-blue casinet pantaloons which failed to make the connection with either coat or socks, coming about three inches below the former and an inch or two above the latter,” this extraordinary young man drifted about New Salem, reading, studying, dreaming, telling stories, and making “a host of friends wherever he went.”

The late Albert J. Beveridge, the outstanding Lincoln scholar of his time, says in his monumental biography:

Not only did his wit, kindliness and knowledge attract the people, but his strange clothes and uncouth awkwardness advertised him, the shortness of his trousers causing particular remark and amusement. Soon the name of “Abe Lincoln” became a household word.

Finally the grocery frm of Lincoln & Berry failed. This was to be expected, for, with Lincoln absorbed in his books and Berry half groggy with whisky, the end was inevitable. Without a dollar left to pay for his meals and lodging now, Lincoln had to do any kind of manual labor hecould fnd: he cut brush, pitched hay, built fences, shucked corn, labored in a sawmill, and worked for a while as a blacksmith.

Then, with the aid of Mentor Graham, he plunged into the intricacies of trigonometry and logarithms, prepared himself to be a surveyor, bought a horse and compass on credit, cut a grape-vine to be used as a chain, and started out surveying town lots for thirty-seven and a half cents apiece.

In the meantime the Rutledge tavern also had failed, and Lincoln's sweetheart had had to go to work as a servant in a farmer's kitchen. Lincoln soon got a job plowing corn on the same farm. In the evening he stood in the kitchen wiping the dishes which Ann washed. He was flled with a vast happiness at the very thought of being near her. Never again was he to experience such rapture and such content. Shortly before his death he confessed to a friend that he had been happier as a barefoot farm laborer back in Illinois than he had ever been in the White House.

But the ecstasy of the lovers was as short as it was intense. In August, 1835, Ann fell ill. At frst there was no pain, nothing but great fatigue and weariness. She tried to carry on her work as usual, but one morning she was unable to get out of bed. That day the fever came, and her brother rode over to New Salem for Dr. Allen. He pronounced it typhoid. Her body seemed to be burning, but her feet were so cold that they had to be warmed with hot stones. She kept begging vainly for water. Medical science now knows that she should have been packed in ice and given all the water she could drink, but Dr. Allen didn't know that.

Dreadful weeks dragged by. Finally Ann was so exhausted that she could no longer raise even her hands from the sheets. Dr. Allen ordered absolute rest, visitors were forbidden, and that night when Lincoln came even he was not permitted to see her. But the next day and the following day she kept murmuring his name and calling for him so pitifully that he was sent for. When he arrived, he went to her bedside immediately, thedoor was closed, and they were left alone. This was the last hour of the lovers together.

The next day Ann lost consciousness and remained unconscious until her death.

The weeks that followed were the most terrible period of Lincoln's life. He couldn't sleep. He wouldn't eat. He repeatedly said that he didn't want to live, and he threatened to kill himself. His friends became alarmed, took his pocket-knife away, and watched to keep him from throwing himself into the river. He avoided people, and when he met them he didn't speak, didn't even seem to see them, but appeared to be staring into another world, hardly conscious of the existence of this.

Day after day he walked fve miles to the Concord Cemetery, where Ann was buried. Sometimes he sat there so long that his friends grew anxious, and went and brought him home. When the storms came, he wept, saying that he couldn't bear to think of the rain beating down upon her grave.

Once he was found stumbling along the Sangamon, mumbling incoherent sentences. People feared he was losing his mind.

So Dr. Allen was sent for. Realizing what was wrong, he said Lincoln must be given some kind of work, some activity to occupy his mind.

A mile to the north of town lived one of Lincoln's closest friends, Bowling Greene. He took Lincoln to his home, and assumed complete charge of him. It was a quiet, secluded spot. Behind the house oak-covered bluffs rose and rolled back to the west. In front the fat bottom-lands stretched away to the Sangamon River, framed in trees. Nancy Greene kept Lincoln busy cutting wood, digging potatoes, picking apples, milking the cows, holding the yarn for her as she spun.

The weeks grew into months, and the months into years, but Lincoln continued to grieve. In 1837, two years after Ann's death, he said to afellow-member of the State Legislature:

“Although I seem to others to enjoy life rapturously at times, yet when I am alone I am so depressed that I am afraid to trust myself to carry a pocket-knife.”

From the day of Ann's death he was a changed individual. The melancholy that then settled upon him lifted at times for short intervals; but it grew steadily worse, until he became the saddest man in all Illinois.

Herndon, later his law partner, said:

“If Lincoln ever had a happy day in twenty years, I never knew of it.... Melancholy dripped from him as he walked.”

From this time to the end of his life, Lincoln had a fondness, almost an obsession, for poems dealing with sorrow and death. He would often sit for hours without saying a word, lost in reverie, the very picture of dejection, and then would suddenly break forth with these lines from “The Last Leaf:”

The mossy marbles rest

On the lips that he has prest

In their bloom;

And the names he loved to hear

Have been carved for many a year

On the tomb.

Shortly after Ann's death, he memorized a poem “Mortality” and beginning, “Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?” It became his favorite. He often repeated it to himself when he thought no one else was listening; repeated it to people in the country hotels of Illinois; repeated it in public addresses; repeated it to guests in the White House; wrote copies of it for his friends; and said:

“I would give all I am worth, and go in debt, to be able to write like that.”

He loved the last two stanzas best:

Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,

Are mingled together in sunshine and rain;

And the smile and the tear and the song and the dirge

Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.

Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath,

From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,

From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud, —

Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

The old Concord Cemetery, where Ann Rutledge was buried, is a peaceful acre in the midst of a quiet farm, surrounded on three sides by wheat-felds and on the fourth by a blue-grass pasture where cattle feed and sheep graze. The cemetery itself is overgrown now with brush and vines, and is seldom visited by man. In the springtime the quails make their nests in it and the silence of the place is broken only by the bleating of sheep and the call of the bob-white.

For more than half a century the body of Ann Rutledge lay there in peace. But in 1890 a local undertaker started a new cemetery in Petersburg, four miles away. Petersburg already had a beautiful and commodious burying-ground known as the Rose Hill Cemetery; so selling lots in the new one was slow and difficult. Consequently, the greedy undertaker, in an unholy moment, conceived the gruesome scheme of violating the grave of Lincoln's sweetheart, bringing her dust to his cemetery, and using its presence there as an argument to boost sales.

So “on or about the fifteenth of May, 1890—” to quote the exact words of his shocking confession—he opened her grave. And what did he fnd? We know, for there is a quiet old lady still living in Petersburg who told the story to the author of this volume, and made an affdavit to its veracity. She is the daughter of McGrady Rutledge, who was a first cousin of Ann Rutledge. McGrady Rutledge often worked with Lincoln in the felds, helped him as a surveyor, ate with him and shared his bed with him, and probably knew more about Lincoln's love for Ann than any other third person has ever known.

On a quiet summer evening this old lady sat in a rockingchair on her porch and told the author: “I have often heard Pa say that after Ann's death Mr. Lincoln would walk fve miles out to Ann's grave and stay there so long that Pa would get worried and fear something would happen to him, and go and bring him home.... Yes, Pa was with the undertaker when Ann's grave was opened, and I have often heard him tell that the only trace they could fnd of Ann's body was four pearl buttons from her dress.”

So the undertaker scooped up the four pearl buttons, and some dirt and interred them in his new Oakland Cemetery at Petersburg—and then advertised that Ann Rutledge was buried there.

And now, in the summer months, thousands of pilgrims motor there to dream over what purports to be her grave; I have seen them stand with bowed heads and shed tears above the four pearl buttons. Over those four buttons there stands a beautiful granite monument bearing this verse from Edgar Lee Masters' “Spoon River Anthology:”

Out of me unworthy and unknown

The vibrations of deathless music:

“With malice toward none, with charity for all.”

Out of me the forgiveness of millions toward millions,

And the beneficent face of a nation

Shining with justice and truth.

I am Ann Rutledge who sleep beneath these weeds,

Beloved in life of Abraham Lincoln,

Wedded to him, not through union,

But through separation.

Bloom forever, O Republic,

From the dust of my bosom!

But Ann's sacred dust remains in the old Concord Cemetery. The rapacious undertaker could not carry it away—she and her memories are still there. Where the bob-white calls and the wild rose blows, there is the spot that Abraham Lincoln hallowed with his tears, there is the spot where he said his heart lay buried, there would Ann Rutledge wish to be.

5

拉特利奇旅馆和西部其他数千个圆木小屋一样，外观粗糙，常年经受风吹雨打，路过的陌生人都不会看它一眼。但对于林肯来说，他的眼睛，他的心，早已一刻都离不开它了。在林肯看来，这座小屋包罗万象，高耸入天际。每次他跨过旅馆的门槛时，心跳就会猛然加速。

他从杰克·凯尔索那儿借了一本莎士比亚的书，躺在杂货铺的长条桌上，翻开书页，一遍又一遍地朗读：

嘘！那边窗户里亮起的是什么光？

哦，那是东方，朱丽叶就是太阳！

他合上书，无法阅读，无法思考。他躺在那里，度过梦幻般的一小时，重温着记忆中安昨天晚上说的每一件美妙的事。他现在只为一件事而活——与安在一起。

在那个时代，流行举办缝被派对。安总是受到邀请，是派对的常客。缝衣针在她那纤细的手指间飞舞，一件不同寻常的艺术品转眼间便被做了出来。早上，林肯总是陪着安一起骑马去往聚会地点，晚上再接她回家。有一次，他竟厚着脸皮走了进去——要知道，几乎没有男人胆敢闯入这种场合——坐在安旁边。她的心一阵悸动，一缕绯红升上了她的脸颊。她太激动了，指间的缝衣针不听使唤，于是她的针脚全乱了。那些年长的妇女可沉着多了，她们注意到了安的反常，却什么都没说，只是微微一笑。派对的主人一直保存着这条被子，在林肯成为总统后，她曾自豪地向游客展示总统曾经的心上人缝制的这件针脚凌乱的作品。

夏日的夜晚，林肯和安漫步在桑加蒙河畔，夜莺在树上鸣叫，萤火虫在夜幕中织出了美丽的金线。秋天的时候，他们常去树林里游荡。林中的橡树层林尽染，山核桃啪嗒啪嗒地掉落在地上。到了冬天，待下过雪，他们便徒步穿过森林，途中看到：

每一棵橡树、白蜡树和胡桃树

都披着伯爵也买不起的白貂皮，

就连榆树最瘦小的枝丫

也缀满了一英寸厚的珍珠。

对于他们来说，两人现在的生命具有一种神圣的温柔，一种崭新的、异常美好的意义。每当林肯只是站着俯视安那双蓝色的眼睛时，她的心中便会荡起歌声。对于林肯来说，哪怕只是轻轻地触碰安的双手，也会让他激动地屏住呼吸，从而惊讶地发现，原来世界上竟然有如此美好的幸福。

在这之前，林肯和牧师的酒鬼儿子贝利（Berry）合伙做生意。新塞勒姆村人烟日渐稀少，村里所有的商店都在苟延残喘。但林肯和贝利都没有预见这一点。他们买下了三间残破的木屋杂货店，重新整修了一番，开始了自己的生意。

一天，一位迁往爱荷华州的旅人驾着一辆盖着粗布、载满物品的马车来到了林肯和贝利的商店前。路面泥泞，马儿也很疲乏，于是这位旅人想减轻马车的负荷。他想将一桶家用物品卖给林肯。林肯本不想要，但又同情马儿，于是花了五十五美分买下了这一桶废物，看也不看便将大桶滚到了商店的后屋。

两周后，他闲来无聊，便将大桶中的东西倒在了地上，想看看自己到底买了什么。在这堆垃圾的下面，林肯发现了一本完整的《布莱克斯通法律评注》，于是他便阅读起来。农民们都在地里干活，商店几乎没什么客人，所以他有很多闲暇时间。他越往下读，越感兴趣。从来没有哪本书让他这么着迷。他一口气读完了四卷书。

然后他做了一个重大的决定：他要成为一名律师。如果安·拉特利奇能嫁给一位律师，她一定感到非常骄傲。安支持他的想法，他们约好等他完成法学课程并开始执业时就结婚。

读完了布莱克斯通的书后，他便穿过平原，去往二十英里外的春田市向一位他在抵抗“黑鹰”的战斗中认识的律师借阅其他法律书籍。回来的路上，他将书在手中摊开，边走边读。每当遇到难懂之处，他便会拖着脚步慢慢停下，全神贯注地思考，直至茅塞顿开。

他读啊读，就这样读了二三十页，直至黄昏降临，天黑得看不见路。这时天空缀满繁星，他也饿了，于是加快了脚步。

他将时间都花在了学习上，心无旁骛。白天的时候他躺在商店旁的榆树荫下，将光着的脚丫架在树干上，认真地读书。晚上的时候他便去修桶匠的店里，用周围的废料点灯，全神贯注地学习。他总是大声朗读书上的内容，然后合上书，写下刚才所读的要点，再不断修改完善，直至幼童也能看懂其中清晰的条理和含义。

林肯不管去哪里——在河边闲逛也好，在林中散步也好，去田里干活也好——他的胳膊下都夹着一本奇蒂或布莱克斯通的法律书。有一次一个农民雇他砍柴，中午这位农民路过仓库，却发现林肯光脚坐在角落的柴堆上学习法律。

格林汉姆老师告诉林肯，如果他渴望在政法界出人头地，就一定要学习语法。

“去哪里借语法书呢？”林肯问道。

格林汉姆老师说六英里外的村子里有一个叫约翰·万斯（John Vance）的农民，他有一本《柯克姆语法》。林肯听后立刻站了起来，戴上帽子借书去了。

他掌握柯克姆语法的速度着实让格林汉姆老师震惊。三十年后已是校长的格林汉姆说，他教过五千多名学生，但林肯是他遇到过的“最好学，最勤奋，对知识和文学的追求最诚挚的学生”。

“我了解林肯，”格林汉姆老师说，“为了在三种表述方式中选出最佳选项，他可以一连研究好几个小时。”

掌握了柯克姆语法后，林肯又如饥似渴地读完了吉本的《罗马帝国衰亡史》，罗林的《古代史》，一卷美国军队传，杰斐逊、克雷和韦伯斯特的生平，以及汤姆·佩因（Tom Paine）的《理性时代》。

穿着“一件蓝色棉布短外套，一双笨重的靴子，一条与上衣相差三英寸、与袜子相距一两英寸的淡蓝色马裤”的杰出青年林肯，在新塞勒姆村四处游荡，四处读书学习，四处做梦讲故事，而且“到哪儿都有一群朋友”。

后来，杰出的林肯研究专家阿尔伯特·J.贝弗里奇（Albert J. Beveridge）在他那本里程碑般的传记中写道：

林肯吸引民众的不仅是他的智慧、善良和广博的知识，还有他的奇装异服和笨拙。这些都是他的招牌，尤其是那条够不到脚踝的裤子，总是被人们津津乐道。不久，亚伯拉罕·林肯成了家喻户晓的名字。

林肯和贝利合伙开的店铺还是倒闭了。这是可以预见的——林肯整日沉迷书本，贝利整日喝得醉醺醺的——店铺倒闭是迟早的事。现在，林肯连一分食宿费都没有了，于是他不得不到处找体力活儿干：砍灌木，扬干草，筑篱笆，为谷子脱粒，在锯木厂打工，还做过一阵子铁匠。

之后，在格林汉姆老师的帮助下，他投入了错综复杂的三角学和对数的学习，以便做一个测量员。他赊账买了一匹马和一个罗盘，砍了一根葡萄藤做链子，以每次三十七美分半的价格测量市中心的各个地段。

与此同时，拉特利奇旅馆也倒闭了。林肯的心上人不得不去农户家里帮厨。很快，林肯就在那户农民家里找到了犁玉米的活。晚上，安在厨房洗碗，他就站在一旁擦盘子。一想到可以走近她，林肯的心中就充满了巨大的幸福感。在以后的生命中，他再也没有体会过如此炙热的幸福感和满足感。在他去世前不久，他曾向一个朋友坦白，在伊利诺伊州做赤脚农民的时光，远比在白宫的日子幸福。

然而，这对恋人的幸福既浓烈又短暂。一八三五年八月，安病倒了。她一开始也没有什么疼痛的地方，就是觉得疲倦困乏。她努力像往常一样工作，但某天早晨，她连起床的力气都没有了。那一天，她发起了高烧，她的哥哥骑马去新塞勒姆村找艾伦医生。医生诊断是伤寒。她的身体如火般滚烫，但她的脚却像冰一样冷，要用滚烫的石头暖着才行。她总是要水喝。现代医学建议，这种情况应该用冰块给她降温，再让她多喝水。但艾伦医生并不知道应该这样做。

就这样过了可怕的几周。最后，安连从床上举起手的力气都没有了。艾伦医生说安需要静养，禁止任何访客。那一晚，甚至林肯都不被允许探望她。第二天以及接下来的一天，安嘴里一直含糊地喊着林肯的名字，于是家人喊来了林肯。林肯到达后立即走到了她的床边。门关着，房间里只有他们两个人。这便是这对情侣一起度过的最后的时光。

第二天，安失去了意识，然后再也没有醒来。

安去世后的几个星期是林肯一生中最惨淡的时光。他无法入睡，也吃不下任何东西。他不断地说自己也不想活了，甚至试图自杀。他的朋友们警觉起来，拿走了他随身的便刀，小心地看着他，以防他投河自尽。他变得不愿见人，即便见了人也不愿说话，甚至看都不看他们。他似乎总是在凝视着另一个世界，而忘记了现实世界的存在。

他每天都步行五英里去安的长眠之处——“和谐公墓”。有的时候，他在那儿待得太久，朋友们担心他，就去墓地带他回家。下大雨的时候，他就哭喊着说，无法忍受安的坟墓任凭风雨侵袭。

有一次，人们发现林肯在桑加蒙河畔跌跌撞撞地走着，嘴里语无伦次地说着破碎的句子。人们担心他疯了。

于是人们请来了艾伦医生。医生知道林肯得的是心病，便要求他必须做些工作，以便分散注意力。

村子北面一英里处住着林肯的密友宝林·格林（Bowling Greene），他将林肯接到了家中，无微不至地照顾着。此地非常安静，与世隔绝。房子背面是高耸的悬崖，上面长满了橡树，一直向西边延展开去。房子前面是一片低洼地，一直延伸至桑加蒙河畔，四周种满了树木。格林的太太南希给林肯派了很多活儿：砍树、挖土豆、摘苹果、挤奶以及在她纺纱的时候帮她拿住纱线。

日子一天天过去，转眼间，已过去了好几年，但林肯仍旧十分悲伤。在一八三七年，也就是安去世两年后，他对州议会的一位议员同伴说道：

“虽然在他人看来，我有时过得很快活，但当我独自一人时，我其实非常悲伤，我甚至不敢随身带便刀，就怕自己做出什么事来。”

自安去世那天起，林肯就变了一个人。虽然他有时也能短暂地摆脱那份哀愁，但他心中的哀伤却仍旧与日俱增。最后，林肯成了伊利诺伊州最悲伤的人。

他后来在法律上的合伙人赫恩登说：“这二十年来，我实在没看到林肯有哪一天是快乐的……他走路的时候哀伤就从他的身上一滴滴淌下来。”

在此后的一生中，林肯便喜欢上了表达哀伤和死亡的诗句。他的喜欢甚至可以说是一种痴迷。他常常一连坐上好几个小时，一言不发，陷入沉思。他的身影就是对哀伤最好的诠释。然后他会突然背起《最后的叶子》中的诗句来：

长满苔藓的石板

盖在他曾热吻过的

如鲜花般绚烂的嘴唇上；

令他欣喜的名字

刻在墓碑上，

经历了岁月的风霜。

安去世后不久，林肯记住了一首名叫《人固有一死》的诗。诗的开头是这样的：“人啊，你有什么值得骄傲的呢？”这首诗成了他的最爱。当他独自一人时常常背诵这首诗。他曾在伊利诺伊州的乡村旅馆里向众人背诵过这首诗，他也曾在公众演讲中引用过这首诗，还在白宫会见客人以及给朋友写信时提到这首诗。他在给朋友的信中说到：

“如果可以拥有写出这种诗歌的才华，我愿意为此倾尽所有财产，哪怕债务缠身也在所不惜。”

他最喜欢诗的最后两节：

是啊！希望和失望，欢乐和痛苦，

都和阳光与雨水交织在一起；

笑声和泪水，欢歌与挽歌，

彼此相随，就像浪花前后相逐。

眨眼吐息之间，

健康蓬勃的生命就变成了苍白的死亡，

金光闪耀的厅堂变成了棺材与坟墓——

人啊，你有什么值得骄傲的呢？

安·拉特利奇长眠的“和谐公墓”位于一处安静的农田中央，非常清净。公墓的三面都是麦田，另一面是一片绿油油的牧场，总有牛羊在那里吃草。现在公墓周围长满了灌木丛和藤条，几乎无人问津。每到春天，鹌鹑就在里面筑巢。那里安静极了，偶尔能听到绵羊的咩咩声和白鸽的咕咕声。

安·拉特利奇在此地安静地长眠了半个多世纪。但在一八九〇年，一位当地的殡葬承办人在四英里外的彼得斯堡开办了一个新的公墓。彼得斯堡已经有了一处漂亮气派的“玫瑰山墓园”，因此新墓地卖得很慢。结果，这个贪婪的殡葬承办人在某个邪恶的时刻想出了一个可怕的点子：毁掉林肯心上人的墓地，将她的遗骨迁到他的新墓地，以此作为招牌刺激销售。

按照这位殡葬承办人提供的令人震惊的供词，“大约在一八九〇年五月十五日”，他挖开了安的坟墓。他找到了什么呢？多亏现在仍住在彼得斯堡的一位老妇人，我们才得以知道事情的原委。这位老妇人是安·拉特利奇的大表兄麦克格雷迪·拉特利奇（McGrady Rutledge）的女儿，她以书面形式保证所提供的信息是真实的。麦克格雷迪·拉特利奇曾和林肯一起在田间干活，帮着林肯测绘土地，和林肯同吃同住，因此对林肯与安之间的感情，他比其他任何人都清楚。

在一个宁静的夏日的夜晚，这位老妇人坐在门廊上的摇椅中，缓缓地对笔者说道：“我经常听父亲说，安死后，林肯先生总会步行五英里去安的坟墓，一待就是很久。父亲见他一直不回来，担心他出事，便总是去墓地将他带回来……那位殡葬承办人挖开安的坟墓时父亲也在场。我常听父亲说，当时他们找到的唯一遗物，竟然只是安裙子上的四颗珍珠纽扣。”

于是，那位殡葬承办人带走了那四颗珍珠纽扣以及几捧黄土，把它们埋在彼得斯堡的“奥克兰公墓”，然后打出了安·拉特利奇长眠于此的广告。

现在，每到夏季，数以千计的朝圣者便会驱车前往此地，瞻仰所谓的安的坟墓。我曾见到他们站在那四颗纽扣前，低着头，眼中满是泪水。在那四颗纽扣上面是一座漂亮的花岗岩墓碑，上面刻着埃德加·李·马斯特斯（Edgar Lee Masters）的《匙河诗集》中的诗句：

从我这个微不足道，默默无名的女子口中

荡起一首永恒的乐曲：

“对谁都勿有恶意，对谁都心怀悲悯。”

宽恕众生，让慈悲充满整个国家，

真理之光在闪耀。

我是安·拉特利奇，长眠于青草之下；

我是亚伯拉罕·林肯的挚爱，

并非通过结合，而是通过分离，

我和林肯永远成了夫妻。

透过胸前的尘埃，

合众国啊，愿你永远昌盛！

然而，安神圣的遗骨依旧留在那古老的“和谐公墓”中。贪婪的殡葬承办人带走了她的纽扣，但无法带走她留在那片土地上的回忆和遗骨。在那里，白鸽咕咕地叫着，野玫瑰静静地盛开。在那里，林肯曾洒下热泪。那块土地也因此变得神圣起来。林肯曾说，他的心和安一起埋在了那里。这也是安·拉特利奇的心愿。