tears; all personal feelings--love for
Edwin, jealousy of the beautiful girl--receded farther and farther into
the background of her thoughts; only her own destiny, the world in
which her fervid heart was languishing, the tortures of a lost youth,
the dread of a lonely and loveless old age,--these rose in ghostly,
exaggerated outlines before her soul, and from time to time extorted
from her a cry, that in the deep silence startled even herself.

When she came to the fish ponds, above which floated still denser fogs,
she involuntarily paused. For a long time she stood and gazed at the
dense whiteness which never shifted and which seemed to be waiting for
some wearied, hunted human life to find rest in its depths. But her
seething blood, inflamed by the unusual indulgence in wine, recoiled
from the thought of such an end. Mechanically and without thinking of
what she was doing, she picked up a stone from the roadside and threw
it into the mist-veiled water. The sullen plash of its fall recalled
her to herself. She drew a long breath, trembled, wrapped her cloak
closer around her, and then walked away more slowly than before, but
taking a direct lane toward the city, which she reached in half an
hour.

In the wild chaos of thoughts that filled her mind as she went, there
was one fixed resolution, to which she constantly returned: to-morrow
she would leave the house where she lodged, engage other rooms, and
then consider whether it would not be better to turn her back upon the
city altogether and seek some corner of the world where life would be
quite destitute of charm, nature most barren, and men utterly wretched.
Invalids often go to springs merely to find companions in suffering and
thus make their condition more endurable. Why should not the miserable
avoid the neighborhood of the happy, in order to bear their burdens
more easily among those who are wretched likewise?

As she entered the little courtyard of the house in the
Dorotheenstrasse, she noticed that there was a light in her room; but
thought the maid servant, who waited upon her and had a second key, was
probably doing something there and unsuspiciously ascended the stairs.
She had been unable to make up her mind to look at Edwin's windows.

On reaching her door, however, she did not find the key in the lock.
"Perhaps the girl has only lighted the lamp and gone out again," she
thought, as she hastily opened it. The little ante-room was dark and
nothing wa