during these days by the perusal of the Odyssey, which I had not read for so long and which had fallen into my hands by chance.  Homer’s long-suffering hero, always homesick yet condemned to perpetual wandering, and always valiantly overcoming all difficulties, was strangely sympathetic to me.  Suddenly the peaceful state I had scarcely yet entered upon was disturbed by a letter which Karl received from Mme. Laussot.  He did not know whether he ought to show it to me, as he thought Jessie had gone mad.  I tore it out of his hand, and found she had written to say that she felt obliged to let my friend know that she had been sufficiently enlightened about me to make her drop my acquaintance entirely.  I afterwards discovered, chiefly through the help of Frau Ritter, that in consequence of my letter and my arrival in Bordeaux, M. Laussot, together with Mrs. Taylor, had immediately taken Jessie to the country, intending to remain there until the news was received of my departure, to accelerate which he had applied to the police authorities.  While they were away, and without telling her of my letter and my journey, they had obtained a promise from the young woman to remain quiet for a year, give up her visit to Dresden, and, above all, to drop all correspondence with me; since, under these conditions, she was promised her entire freedom at the end of that time, she had thought it better to give her word.  Not content with this, however, the two conspirators had immediately set about calumniating me on all sides, and finally to Mme. Laussot herself, saying that I was the initiator of this plan of elopement.  Mrs. Taylor had written to my wife complaining of my intention to commit adultery, at the same time expressing her pity for her and offering her support; the unfortunate Minna, who now thought she had found a hitherto unsuspected reason for my resolve to remain separated from her, wrote back complaining of me to Mrs. Taylor.  The meaning of an innocent remark I had once made had been strangely misinterpreted, and matters wore now aggravated by making it appear as though I had intentionally lied.  In the course of playful conversation Jessie had once told me that she belonged to no recognised form of religion, her father Having teen a member of a certain sect which did not baptise either according to the Protestant or the Roman Catholic ritual; whereupon I had comforted her by assuring her that I had come in contact with much more questionable sects, as shortly after my marriage in Konigsberg I had learned that it had been solemnised by a hypocrite.  God alone knows in what form this had been repeated to the worthy British matron, but, at all events, she told my wife that I had said I was ’not legally married to her.’  In any case, my wife’s answer to this had no doubt furnished further material with which to poison Jessie’s mind against me, and this letter to my young friend was the result.  I must admit that, seen by this light, the circumstance