“First of all I must tell you that at the end of May I became engaged, to my own surprise. This is how it came about. One day I received a letter from a girl whom I had already seen and met. I learnt from this letter that for a long time past she had honoured me with her love. The letter was so warm and sincere that I decided to answer it, which I had always carefully avoided doing in other cases of the kind. Without going into the details of this correspondence, I will merely say that I ended by accepting her invitation to visit her. Why did I do this? Now it seems as though some hidden force drew me to this girl. When we met I told her again that I could only offer gratitude and sympathy in exchange for her love. But afterwards I began to reflect upon the folly of my proceedings. If I did not care for her, if I did not want to encourage her affections, why did I go to see her, and where will all this end? From the letters which followed, I came to the conclusion that, having gone so far, I should make her really unhappy and drive her to some tragic end were I to bring about a sudden rupture. I found myself confronted by a painful dilemma: either I must keep my freedom at the expense of this woman’s ruin (this is no empty word, for she loved me intensely), or I must marry. I could but choose the latter course. Therefore I went one evening to my future wife and told her frankly that I could not love her, but that I would be a devoted and grateful friend; I described to her in detail my character, my irritability, my nervous temperament, my misanthropy--finally, my pecuniary situation. Then I asked her if she would care to be my wife. Her answer was, of course, in the affirmative. The agonies I have endured since that evening defy description. It is very natural. To live thirty-seven years with an innate antipathy to matrimony, and then suddenly, by force of circumstances, to find oneself engaged to a woman with whom one is not in the least in love--is very painful. To give myself time to consider and grow used to the idea, I decided not to upset my original plans, but to spend a month in the country just the same. I did so, and the quiet, rural life among congenial friends, surrounded by beautiful scenery, has had a very beneficial effect. I consoled myself with the thought that we cannot escape our fate, and there was something fatalistic in my meeting with this girl. Besides, I know from experience that the terrible, agitating _unknown_ often proves beneficial and _vice versâ_. How often we are disappointed in the happiness which we have expected and striven to attain! Let come what come may!