realize that now
from my own experience. If I did not call to my aid all the little
sense and self-consciousness I possess, we should now fall into one
another's arms, and ruin would take its course. One more name would
stand on your list; you would go to the war, and there, in the great
events that go to make up the history of the world, you would find the
very best excuse for letting this little affair of the heart drop
completely out of your memory. No, my friend, I think too much of
myself for that. I confidently believe that my respected person has
merely become of importance in your eyes, because I have heretofore
withstood your amiability in a perfectly incomprehensible way. As soon
as you should become convinced that I too am only a weak woman, I
should become a matter of great indifference to you. Now, it is true,
my stupid honesty has prevented me from concealing this from you; but I
don't regard myself as hopelessly lost even yet. Now, if you go to the
war, we shall both be equally well off. We shall both have ample time
and opportunity for forgetting one another. I, to be sure, here alone
in this deathly quiet house, where I hear nothing but the squeak of
your mice--I shall have somewhat the harder time. But perhaps some
other dangerous youth will move into your quarters--a dark-complexioned
Hungarian or Pole--I have always had a partiality for brunettes, and
for that reason alone it is a great mistake for me to love you with
your red beard."

She had to turn her head away, it was impossible for her to conceal her
emotion any longer by forced jests. She stealthily pressed her curls
against her overflowing eyes, but, nevertheless, she shook her head
when he put his arm around her and drew her to his breast.

"No, no!" she whispered; "I don't believe it even now. You shall see it
will turn out badly. It's so silly of my stupid tears to give the lie
to my wisest words; and then, too, my foolish heart, that ought to be
old enough not to let itself be deluded--"

* * * * *

On the evening of the same day Angelica wrote a long letter to Julie.

After she had relieved her heart of a thousand things that concerned
her friend alone, and had arrived at the end of the twelfth page, she
finally summoned up all her courage, took a fresh sheet, and wrote the
following postscript:

"To tell you the truth, I was going to be so cowardly and deceitful as
to send off this letter witho