d my answer four
hours after; it ran as follows: "Dearest, it is too late; you have
decided on my destiny, and I cannot go back from my word. Come to dinner
at M. Corneman's, and be sure that in a few weeks we shall be
congratulating ourselves on having won a great victory. Our love, crowned
all too soon, will soon live only in our memories. I beg of you to write
to me no more."

Such was my fate. Her refusal, with the still more cruel charge not to
write to her again, made me furious. In it I only saw inconstancy. I
thought she had fallen in love with the merchant. My state of mind may be
judged from the fact that I determined to kill my rival. The most savage
plans, the most cruel designs, ran a race through my bewildered brain. I
was jealous, in love, a different being from my ordinary self; anger,
vanity, and shame had destroyed my powers of reasoning. The charming girl
whom I was forced to admire, whom I should have esteemed all the more for
the course she had taken, whom I had regarded as an angel, became in my
eyes a hateful monster, a meet object for punishment. At last I
determined on a sure method of revenge, which I knew to be both
dishonourable and cowardly, but in my blind passion I did not hesitate
for a moment. I resolved to go to the merchant at M. Corneman's, where he
was staying, to tell him all that had passed between the lady and myself,
and if that did not make him renounce the idea of marrying her I would
tell him that one of us must die, and if he refused my challenge I
determined to assassinate him.

With this terrible plan in my brain, which makes me shudder now when I
think of it, I ate with the appetite of a wild beast, lay down and slept
till day. I was in the same mind when I awoke, and dressed myself hastily
yet carefully, put two good pistols in my pocket and went to M.
Corneman's. My rival was still asleep; I waited for him, and for a
quarter of an hour my thoughts only grew more bitter and my determination
more fixed. All at once he came into the room, in his dressing-gown, and
received me with open arms, telling me in the kindest of voices that he
had been expecting me to call, as he could guess what feelings I, a
friend of his future wife's, could have for him, and saying that his
friendship for me should always be as warm as hers. His honest open face,
his straightforward words, overwhelmed me, and I was silent for a few
minutes--in fact I did not know what to say. Luckily he gave me