"I am calm--quite calm. I have tasted whatever of happiness life had left to offer me, the sinner.
"But what now?
"Since hours I have been face to face with the last great question: 'Shall I flee or die?'
"One or the other I must do this very night; for to-morrow he will come to lead me to Martha's grave.
"Rather than follow him thither, I will die!
"But I will even assume that I could be enough of a hypocrite not to drop down beside the grave and confess all to him, I will assume that I should not be choked with loathing of myself, that I should really have enough wretched courage to become his wife; what sort of a life should I lead at his side?
"What is the good of clinging to happiness when one has long since forfeited it? Should I not slink about like some poor criminal in her last hours, everlastingly tortured by the fear of betraying myself to him, and yet filled with the desire to proclaim my guilt to the whole world? How could I sleep in the bed out of which I wished her into her grave! How could I wake between the walls on which there still stands written in flaming letters: 'Oh, that she might die!'
"I will converse quite calmly and sensibly with myself, as is meet for one who is making up the account of her life. That I cannot become his wife I know very well.
"Shall I flee?--What should I do among strangers? I know them. I know these people and despise them. They have wrought evil towards me; they would torment me again in the future.
"All the faith, all the love, all the hope still remaining to me, have their foundation in him alone.