The world has never had reason to lament the scarcity of monarchs, particularly in these days; and the good people, who had never yet seen a king, now fancied me to be first one, and then another, with equal success; and in the meanwhile I remained as before, Count Peter.

Among the visitors at this watering-place a merchant made his appearance, one who had become a bankrupt in order to enrich himself.  He enjoyed the general good opinion; for he projected a shadow of respectable size, though of somewhat faint hue.

This man wished to show off in this place by means of his wealth, and sought to rival me.  My purse soon enabled me to leave the poor devil far behind.  To save his credit he became bankrupt again, and fled beyond the mountains; and thus I was rid of him.  Many a one in this place was reduced to beggary and ruin through my means.

In the midst of the really princely magnificence and profusion, which carried all before me, my own style of living was very simple and retired.  I had made it a point to observe the strictest precaution; and, with the exception of Bendel, no one was permitted, on any pretence whatever, to enter my private apartment.  As long as the sun shone I remained shut up with him; and the Count was then said to be deeply occupied in his closet.  The numerous couriers, whom I kept in constant attendance about matters of no importance, were supposed to be the bearers of my despatches.  I only received company in the evening under the trees of my garden, or in my saloons, after Bendel’s assurance of their being carefully and brilliantly lit up.

My walks, in which the Argus-eyed Bendel was constantly on the watch for me, extended only to the garden of the forest-ranger, to enjoy the society of one who was dear to me as my own existence.

Oh, my Chamisso!  I trust thou hast not forgotten what love is!  I must here leave much to thine imagination.  Minna was in truth an amiable and excellent maiden:  her whole soul was wrapped up in me, and in her lowly thoughts of herself she could not imagine how she had deserved a single thought from me.  She returned love for love with all the full and youthful fervour of an innocent heart; her love was a true woman’s love, with all the devotion and total absence of selfishness which is found only in woman; she lived but in me, her whole soul being bound up in mine, regardless what her own fate might be.

Yet I, alas, during those hours of wretchedness—­hours I would even now gladly recall—­how often have I wept on Bendel’s bosom, when after the first mad whirlwind of passion I reflected, with the keenest self-upbraidings, that I, a shadowless man, had, with cruel selfishness, practised a wicked deception, and stolen away the pure and angelic heart of the innocent Minna!

At one moment I resolved to confess all to her; then that I would fly for ever; then I broke out into a flood of bitter tears, and consulted Bendel as to the means of meeting her again in the forester’s garden.