CHAPTER IV.

I submit myself to thy judgment, my dear Chamisso; I do not seek to bias it.  I have long been a rigid censor of myself, and nourished at my heart the worm of remorse.  This critical moment of my life is ever present to my soul, and I dare only cast a hesitating glance at it, with a deep sense of humiliation and grief.  Ah, my dear friend, he who once permits himself thoughtlessly to deviate but one step from the right road, will imperceptibly find himself involved in various intricate paths, all leading him farther and farther astray.  In vain he beholds the guiding-stars of Heaven shining before him.  No choice is left him—­he must descend the precipice, and offer himself up a sacrifice to his fate.  After the false step which I had rashly made, and which entailed a curse upon me, I had, in the wantonness of passion, entangled one in my fate who had staked all her happiness upon me.  What was left for me to do in a case where I had brought another into misery, but to make a desperate leap in the dark to save her ?—­the last, the only means of rescue presented itself.  Think not so meanly of me, Chamisso, as to imagine that I would have shrunk from any sacrifice on my part.  In such a case it would have been but a poor ransom.  No, Chamisso; but my whole soul was filled with unconquerable hatred to the cringing knave and his crooked ways.  I might be doing him injustice; but I shuddered at the bare idea of entering into any fresh compact with him.  But here a circumstance took place which entirely changed the face of things . . .

I know not whether to ascribe it to excitement of mind, exhaustion of physical strength (for during the last few days I had scarcely tasted anything), or the antipathy I felt to the society of my fiendish companion; but just as I was about to sign the fatal paper, I fell into a deep swoon, and remained for a long time as if dead.  The first sounds which greeted my ear on recovering my consciousness were those of cursing and imprecation; I opened my eyes—­it was dusk; my hateful companion was overwhelming me with reproaches.  “Is not this behaving like an old woman?  Come, rise up, and finish quickly what you were going to do; or perhaps you have changed your determination, and prefer to lie groaning there?”

I raised myself with difficulty from the ground and gazed around me without speaking a word.  It was late in the evening, and I heard strains of festive music proceeding from the ranger’s brilliantly illuminated house; groups of company were lounging about the gardens; two persons approached, and seating themselves on the bench I had lately occupied, began to converse on the subject of the marriage which had taken place that morning between the wealthy Mr. Rascal and Minima.  All was then over.