Brincken said he felt obliged to break off
the engagement. He was suffering from a heart trouble, and a recent
medical examination had proved to him that he would be guilty of an
unpardonable wrong in marrying a young girl.

To me he wrote:

"You will understand why I give a fictitious reason to your father and
to the world in general. I should be committing a moral murder were I to
marry you under the circumstances. My love for you, great as it is, is
not great enough to conquer the instinctive repugnance of your youth."

Once again he sent me abroad at his own expense. This time, at my own
wish, I went to Paris, where I met a young artist who fell in love with
me. Had I not, in the saddest way, ruled out of my life everything that
might interfere with my ambitious projects, I could have returned his
passion. But he was poor; and about the same time I met Richard. I
cheated myself, and betrayed my first love, which might have saved me,
and changed me from an automaton into a living being.

Under the eyes of the man who had stirred my first real emotions, I
proceeded to draw Richard on. My first misfortune taught me wisdom. This
time I had no intention of letting all my plans be shattered.

When I look back on that time, I see that my worst sin was not so much
my resolve to sell myself for money, as my aptitude for playing the
contemptible comedy of pretended love for days and months and years. I,
who only felt a kind of indifference for Richard, which sometimes
deepened into disgust, pretended to be moved by genuine passion. Yes, I
have paid dearly, very dearly, for my golden cage in the Old Market.

Richard is not to blame. He could not have suspected the truth....

It is so fatally easy for a woman to simulate love. Every intelligent
woman knows by infallible instinct what the man who loves her really
wants in return. The woman of ardent temperament knows how to appear
reserved with a lover who is not too emotional; while a cold woman can
assume a passionate air when necessary.

I, Joergen, I, who for years cared for no one but myself, have left
Richard firmly convinced to this day that I was greedy of his caresses.

You are an honest man, and what I have been telling you will come as a
shock. You will not understand it, or me.

Yet I think that you, too, must have known and possessed women without
loving them. But that is not the same. If it were, my guilt would be
less.

I allowed my senses to be inflam