ut telling you of the great event of this
day. I don't mean the declaration of war by France, which will be an
old story by the time this letter comes into your hands, but the
offensive and defensive alliance that I have to-day concluded. With
whom, I should very much prefer you should guess for yourself. But as
it will be too long for me to wait before I can learn whether you have
guessed rightly or not--and as one is said to lose in shrewdness what
one gains in happiness--I will state at once that the artful man
who has surprised my well-known firmness and prudence is no other
than--Rosenbusch. I hope you are not so far-sighted as to see that in
making this confession I blush to such an extent as to do all honor to
my future name--though my rosiness is of a somewhat faded sort. Oh,
dearest! what is our heart? It really seems as though that inexplicable
and irresponsible something within us that controls the blood in its
course and makes the hand cold or warm if we place it in that of
another, exists almost independently of all those other forces which
govern that little world we call the individual. How often have I made
this dear fellow-creature the butt of my merciless sallies! How often,
when alone with you, have I caricatured his weaknesses and human
frailties--to be sure he has changed very much since you last
saw him--and made merry over this rat-catcher with his flute and
blue-velvet coat! And all the while my heart sat in its cell as still
as a mouse and made no movement; nay, even my conscience did not rebel
at the godless way in which I denied that love we are commanded to feel
toward our fellow-creatures. And now all of a sudden--

'Frailty, thy name is woman!'

Oh, dearest! do promise me to forget all my malicious sayings just as
quickly as possible, and to believe that I had long been convinced of
the critical state of my heart, even before this bad man confessed his
feelings to me. I did not write you anything about it, because I
naturally regarded the matter as a wretched piece of stupidity on the
part of this above-mentioned heart, and even now I can't quite believe
in it. You know I never was very lucky in regard to real happiness. And
for that reason I haven't much faith even now; if it is true that he
loves me to distraction, as he declares he does, I feel convinced I
shan't get any enjoyment out of it, and he will be sure to get killed,
for he is going off to the war as a voluntee