happiness,
your confidence? All scattered like the drifting sand in the barren
plain; no fruit can there strike root."

Suddenly the crazy woman shouted aloud and ran shrieking and yelling
discordantly into the thickest part of the wood. When I looked round I
was terrified on seeing my friend become pale as death. He shook so
violently that he could not support himself, but sank on a hillock
beside him. I sat down by him and endeavoured to comfort and quiet him.

"Is this madwoman," he exclaimed; "inspired by truth? does she really
see the past and the future, or are those only mad sounds which she
utters in brutish thoughtlessness, and if it be so, have not such
random words been perhaps the genuine oracles in all ages?"

He now gave way to tears and loud lamentations; he called loudly in the
air, what hitherto he had so carefully and mysteriously locked up in
his heart.

"Yes!" he exclaimed; "accursed be every talent, speech, grace, and all
the gifts with which a malicious fate endowed us to ruin ourselves and
others! Could I not have avoided her first kind look? Why did I
suffer myself to be infatuated, to exchange glance for glance, and then
word for word? Yes! she was lovely, noble, and graceful; but in my
heart there arose together with better feelings, the vanity that even
she, the most exalted, distinguished me. I approached her nearer, more
boldly, more decidedly, and my pure exalted sentiments surprised and
won her. She gave me her confidence. Her heart was so virtuous, so
noble; all her youthful feelings were so tender and fervent; it was a
paradise that opened to our view. Childishly enough, we thought that
no higher happiness on earth could be offered us, the present heavenly
moment sufficed. But now passion awoke in my heart. This she expected
not, she was terrified and withdrew. This goaded my self-love, I felt
unhappy, crushed, and ill. Her compassion was moved, and she no longer
avoided me. By means of an attendant in our confidence, we were able
to meet without witnesses. Our intercourse became more tender, our
love more defined and ardent; but as these feelings were embodied in
language, and expressed more definitely, the paradisiacal breath, the
heavenly bloom was fled for ever. It was happiness, but changed in
character; it was more earthly, more kindly, more confiding, but was
not surrounded by that magic which had transported me formerly, so that
I could frequently ask myself