This man who now hated and despised me, who eagerly awaited the hour when he should wipe out with my blood the insult he had received, would be still there at my side, kind and solicitous for my comfort. These groans, wrung from me by physical suffering and which I tried so hard to stifle, would have been answered by the pitying voice of a brother in his attempt to comfort me.
And to think, great God! I cried out, that the reality of my dream of friendship was so near! To think that once again in my life, by the most unheard-of combination of circumstances, I had only to accept the happiness that was offered to me!
To think that once again a fatal monomania had forced me to exchange all these promises of felicity for the most fearful and lifelong remorse!
Then seeing that my grief was incurable, ideas of suicide came into my mind.
I reproached myself for being only a burden to myself and every one else. I asked myself, Of what use am I, and what have I done with the advantages that fortune had bestowed on me,—youth, health, strength, wealth, intelligence, and courage?
To what use had I put these precious gifts so far? To ruin all those who had loved me.
Thus I resolved that in this duel with Falmouth I would blindly expose my life and respect his.
I felt that in firing on him I should commit fratricide.
By a strange caprice I wished to read his letter once more.
Inexplicable fatality! for the first time I understood its greatness,—its imposing generosity.