ll
lifeless beside it. Do you know how terrible it is, when a dead body
seems to say: 'I've died to make room for you, we two cannot exist and
breathe the same air?' No more! Oh! it drives me mad--even now, when I
think of it for a single moment."

He felt how wearily she tottered on by his side, leaning heavily on his
arm; for a moment it seemed as if she were unable to stand erect; her
eyes closed, and her lips parted like one fainting. But the emotion
soon passed away. She drew a long breath, paused and looked at him with
a calm but sorrowful face.

"No doubt you remember," she began, "how on our excursion to
Charlottenburg we were engaged in a similar grave conversation, and how
I, in my inexperience, said it would not be difficult for a person to
give up the business of life, if he could not pay his expenses or
became totally bankrupt? You almost agreed, but adopted a different
phraseology and replied: 'that when we could neither be useful nor give
pleasure to ourselves or others, we might be permitted to leave our
post.' Well, I've advanced successfully so far that, without boasting,
I may be permitted to include myself among these chosen few. I could
leave a legacy to the village children, the only persons to whom I can
sometimes give pleasure, and the others who would perhaps miss me for
three days after the last honors were paid to my remains, must become
accustomed to it. But you see, dear friend, the most annoying part of
misfortune is, that it makes even a brave soul weak and womanish. Day
follows day, each adds its own contribution to the burden we bear, our
shoulders grow hard, and the heart becomes callous. How often I've
thought of Hamlet's soliloquy. But though he studied philosophy at
Wittenberg, and I've only received a few lessons from you--I know
better than he how the 'native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with
the pale cast of thought.' It's 'just the fear of something after
death;' what makes us cowardly, is the fear that the most delightful
portion of the feast of life will come after we have left the hall to
sleep away all weariness and sorrow. Perhaps it is childish, but I
never rise in the morning without hoping for some unexpected event that
might deliver me. There are countless pleasures on earth--am I the only
person to whom none are allotted? Must I alone never say--now I can die
in peace, for I know why I have lived?' Well to-day I'm glad that I
didn't lose patience, but lived on,