CHAPTER XXIII
"DEAREST HERR VON PRELL,
"You will have concluded from what has happened that all must be over between us. Yes, everything has come to an end. We shall never meet again except at table. If you ask whether this makes me sad I will be brave and say 'No,' in the hope that it will cause you to feel our parting less. But the question is not whether we find it difficult or easy. We have to consider whether our feelings in the matter are elevating and humanly disinterested. True self-sacrifice must be the keystone of our lives. Yes, I expect from you the nobility of renunciation. The whole of our future must be dedicated to memories alone. Are we ever likely to enjoy again such exquisite hours as we have spent together? I have done with thoughts of happiness, and so must you too. Henceforth my one sacred duty will be my husband's welfare, and I must request you to devote all the energy you are capable of to the reordering of your life. You know life is a very sacred thing. I feel that it is so, since I have had a kind woman friend to set me on the right road, and I want you to feel it too.
"This letter is my last. You may write to me just once. Please do, and put your answer in the pea-shooter, which still stands as before in the corner of the balcony. Ah! indeed, I shall have no peace till I know that our souls are united by the same desires. Good-bye, and when you come to meals, be sure you make no secret reference to what has been. It would only be painful to me, and I should doubt your good faith.
"Always yours in true sisterly affection,
"L. v. M."
"Gracious Friend and Lady,
"The profound emotions I have experienced since my last interview with our honoured Fräulein von Schwertfeger are only deepened by your most kind lines. I feel a great impulse to perform deeds of atonement never yet attempted. I am ready to heap scorn and contumely on the seven deadly sins. I will take as example all the paragons of virtue the world has ever known, and will try to find in the lofty renunciation you demand of me that undiluted happiness which is the only kind devoid of the sting of remorse--an advantage which cannot have much weight with one so fatally constituted that he has heard of such a thing but never felt it.
"Thus, dearest and most charming of women, farewell! We certainly had a good time. I can swear to this without committing perjury. Should you require more pledges for the future, I can also swear, first, to abhor alcohol; second, to shun the fair sex like the plague; third, to devote to the Encyclopædia of Agriculture unremitting love and attention, two volumes of seven hundred and twenty pages each notwithstanding.
"Once more, farewell! The ladder of my hopes, which I have climbed for the last time, shall find a wintry grave under fir cones and branches. When the times comes, may it rise therefrom to greet a new spring.