Peter Schlemihl

by Adelbert von Chamisso

and that only for the sake of her; the inmost spirit of my existence was my love.

My good Chamisso, I will hope you have not forgotten what love is! I leave much to your filling up. Mina was indeed a love-worthy, good, and gentle girl; I had obtained full possession of her thoughts; and in her modesty she could not imagine how she had become worthy of my regard, and that I dwelt only upon her; but she returned love for love, in the full youthful energy of an innocent heart. She loved like a woman; all self-sacrificing, self-forgetting, and living only in him who was her life, careless even though she should perish: in a word, she truly loved.

But I—oh, what frightful moments!—frightful! yet worthy to be recalled. How often did I weep in Bendel’s bosom, after I recovered from the first inebriety of rapture! how severely did I condemn myself, that I, a shadowless being, should seal, with wily selfishness, the perdition of an angel, whose pure soul I had attached to me by lies and theft! Now I determined to unveil myself to her; now, with solemn oaths, I resolved to tear myself from her, and to fly; then again I broke out into tears, and arranged with Bendel for visiting her in the forest-garden again in the evening.

Sometimes I allowed myself to be flattered with the hopes of the now nearly approaching visit of the unknown, mysterious old man; and wept anew when I recollected that I had sought him in vain. I had reckoned the day when I was again to expect to see that awful being. He had said a year and a day; and I relied on his word.

Mina’s parents were good, worthy old people, loving their only child most tenderly; the whole affair had taken them by surprise, and, as matters stood, they knew not how to act. They could never have dreamed that Count Peter should think of their child; but it was clear he loved her passionately, and was loved in return. The mother, indeed, was vain enough to think of the possibility of such an alliance, and to prepare for its accomplishment; but the calm good sense of the old man never gave such an ambitious hope a moment’s consideration. But they were both convinced of the purity of my love, and could do nothing but pray for their child.

A letter is now in my hand which I received about this time from Mina. This is her very character. I will copy it for you.

“I know I am a weak, silly girl; for I have taught myself to believe my beloved would not give me pain, and this because I deeply, dearly love him. Alas! thou art so kind, so unutterably kind! but do not delude me. For me make no sacrifice—wish to make no sacrifice. Heaven! I could hate myself if I caused thee to do so. No, thou hast made me infinitely happy; thou hast taught me to love thee. But go in peace! my destiny tells me Count Peter is not mine, but the whole world’s; and then I shall feel proudly as I hear: ‘That it was he—and he again—that he had done this—that he has been adored here, and deified there.’ When I think of this, I could reproach thee for forgetting thy high destinies in a simple maiden. Go in peace, or the thought will make me miserable—me, alas! who am so happy, so blessed through thee. And have not I entwined in thy existence an olive-branch and a rose-bud, as in the garland which I dared to present thee? Think of thyself, my beloved one; fear not to leave me, I should die so blessed—so unutterably blessed, through thee.”

You may well imagine how these words thrilled through my bosom. I told her I was not that which I was supposed to be; I was only a wealthy, but an infinitely-wretched man. There was, I said, a curse upon me, which should be the only secret between her and me;

for I had not yet lost the hope of being delivered from it. This was the poison of my existence: That I could have swept her away with me into the abyss; her, the sole light, the sole bliss, the sole spirit of my life. Then she wept again that I was so unhappy. She was so amiable, so full of love! How blessed had she felt to have offered herself up in order to spare me a single tear!

But she was far from rightly understanding my words: she sometimes fancied I was a prince pursued by a cruel proscription; a high and devoted chief, whom her imagination loved to depicture, and to give to her beloved one all the bright hues of heroism.