Oh, my good Chamisso! I will hope that thou hast not yet forgotten what love is! I leave much unmentioned here to thee. Mina was really an amiable, kind, good child. I had taken her whole imagination captive. She could not, in her humility, conceive how she could be worthy that I should alone have fixed my regard on her; and she returned love for love with all the youthful power of an innocent heart. She loved like a woman, offering herself wholly up; self-forgetting; living wholly and solely for him who was her life; regardless if she herself perished; that is to say--she really loved. But I--oh what terrible hours--terrible and yet worthy that I should wish them back again--have I often wept on Bendel's bosom, when, after the first unconscious intoxication, I recollected myself, looked sharply into myself--I, without a shadow, with knavish selfishness destroying this angel, this pure soul which I had deceived and stolen. Then did I resolve to reveal myself to her; then did I swear with a most passionate oath to tear myself from her, and to fly; then did I burst out into tears, and concert with Bendel how in the evening I should visit her in the Forester's garden. At other times I flattered myself with great expectations from the rapidly approaching visit of the gray man, and wept again when I had in vain tried to believe in it. I had calculated the day on which I expected again to see the fearful one; for he had said in a year and a day; and I believed his word. The parents, good honorable old people, who loved their only child extremely, were amazed at the connection, as it already stood, and they knew not what to do in it. Earlier they could not have believed that Count Peter could think only of their child; but now he really loved her and was beloved again. The mother was probably vain enough to believe in the probability of a union, and to seek for it; the sound masculine understanding of the father did not give way to such overstretched imaginations. Both were persuaded of the purity of my love; they could do nothing more than pray for their child. I have laid my hand on a letter from Mina of this date, which I still retain. Yes, this is her own writing. I transcribe it for thee: