It was a terribly hard task, but after she had begun her letter there seemed to be no end to it. She covered three sheets, and there were yet many loving things to say. Now first she comprehended all that her grandmother had been to her of late years. She forgot how often the old Countess's philosophy had grated upon her, how often she had rebelled against it. How hard it was to leave her! But retreat was not to be thought of.
And she wrote on.
At last she concluded with, "Every one else will point the finger of scorn at me; you will bewail my course, but you will not call it evil, only foolish. Poor, dear grandmother! And you will mourn over the misery which I have voluntarily brought upon myself. It is terrible that I cannot fulfil the mission in life which lies so clearly before me without giving you pain. But I cannot help it! One thing consoles me. I know how large-minded you are: you will have to choose between the world and me, and you will be strong enough to resign the world and to turn to me, and then nothing will be wanting to me in my new life, let people slander me as they will!"
Three times did Erika fold up the letter, and three times did she open it again to add something to it.
At last it was finished. She put with it into the envelope the draft of her wishes as to the disposal of the effects she left behind her, and then asked herself where she should put the letter so that her grandmother might find it instantly upon her return. At first she took it to the Countess's room, but then, reflecting that the old lady would come at once to her bedside to see how she was, she laid it, with eyes streaming with tears, upon the table beside her bed. "Poor grandmother!" She kissed the letter tenderly as she left it.
Now everything was finished: she had only to dress herself. But she was not content. Once more she sat down at her writing-table and wrote. This time the words came slowly and with difficulty from her pen, as if each one were torn singly from her bleeding heart.
"My dear, faithful Friend,"--she began,--"Do not come to Venice. When this letter reaches you I shall have vanished from the world in which you live. I could not endure to have you hear from strangers of the step I am about to take, and so I write to you myself. Yes, when you read this letter I shall have broken with all that has constituted my life hitherto, and shall have fled with--with a married man. How grieved you will be when you read this! My whole soul cries out with pain as I think of it.
"You will not understand it. 'Erika Lenzdorff fled with a married man!' It sounds incredible, does it not?
"You know that I am not light-minded, nor corrupt, and so you will believe me when I tell you that the reasons which have induced me to take so terrible a step are unanswerable in my mind.
"I can redeem the life of a noble and gifted man. His moral nature is deteriorating, he suffers frightfully, and I cannot avoid the conviction that without me he must go to destruction.