. The laws, I thought, were beneficial to the
world, and therefore I embraced the determination of violating them.
Formerly I had sinned from necessity and levity, now it was from free
choice, and for my own pleasure.

"My first plan was to continue my poaching. Hunting altogether had
gradually become a passion with me, and besides I was forced to live
some way. But this was not all; I was tickled at the thought of
scorning the princely edict, and of injuring my sovereign to the utmost
of my power. I no more feared apprehension, for I had a bullet ready
for my discoverer, and I knew that I should not miss my man. I killed
all the game that came across me, a small quantity of which I sold on
the border, but the greater part I left to rot. I lived miserably,
that I might be able to afford powder and ball. My devastations in the
great hunt were notorious, but suspicion no longer touched me. My
aspect dissipated it: my name was forgotten.

"This kind of life lasted for several months. One morning I had, as
usual rambled through the wood, to follow the track of a deer. I had
wearied myself for two hours in vain, and was already beginning to give
up my prey as lost, when I suddenly discovered it within gun-shot. I
was about to take aim and fire, when I was suddenly startled by the
appearance of a hat which lay on the ground a few paces before me. I
looked closer, and discovered the huntsman Robert, who from behind the
thick trunk of an oak tree was levelling his gun at the very animal
which I had designed to shoot. At this sight a deadly coldness passed
through my bones. Here was the man whom I detested more than any
living thing, and this man within reach of my bullet. At the moment I
felt as if the whole world depended on the firing of my gun, and the
hatred of my whole life seemed concentrated in the tip of the finger
that was to give the fatal pressure to the trigger. An invisible fatal
hand was suspended over me, the index of my destiny pointed irrevocably
to this black minute. My arm trembled, when I allowed my gun the fatal
choice, my teeth chattered as in an ague fit, and my breath, with a
suffocating sensation, was confined in my lungs. For the duration of
one minute did the barrel of the gun waver uncertainly between the man
and the deer, one minute--and one more--and yet one more. It was a
doubtful and obstinate contest between revenge and conscience, but
revenge gained the victory, and the hunt