I overheard Franz, Gundel's lover, saying to her: "A woman who looked just like Irmgard was once with the queen at the military maneuvers; and she wore the uniform of our regiment, and rode up and down the line."
If the soldier were to recognize and betray me?
How the confused feelings that fill the human heart seem to play at hide and seek with each other. With all my misery, it is not without a certain feeling of triumph that I learn that my image has impressed itself on a thousand memories.
I have not yet accustomed myself to go out alone, and it often seems to me as if a servant must be walking after me. Ah! what an artificial life we all lead.
I have spent a whole day alone in the woods. Oh, how happy I was! I lay on the ground listening to the rustling of the leaves overhead, and the prattling of the brook below. If I could but end my days here like a wounded doe--for I am one, and drops of blood mark my track.--No, I am well again. I was once in the world; that is, in another world; and now I lead a new life.
The little pitchman knew my father. During one summer, he worked in our forest, gathering pitch, and my father, who understood everything, went up to him and taught him how to boil the pitch in order to obtain a better and purer article than he would otherwise have got.
"Oh, what a man he was! I only wish you'd known him," said the little pitchman to me. "He was so good. Many a one has told me, since then, how he used to help everybody. He knew all about everything. He taught me that you can get the best turpentine from the larches. He never liked to give anything to people, but he wasn't stingy. He helped all who'd work, and showed them how things might be done with less trouble and with greater profit, and that was better than giving them money. Every year he would lend them some money, so that they could buy a pig, and when they'd sold it, they had to pay him back. They often laughed at him and gave him a nickname, too, but it was an honor to him. Yes--and would you believe it?--he had a great misfortune. His children deserted him."
How these words rent my heart!