Directly after leaving you I had, it is true, no other unpleasant feeling than that a total stranger had disturbed me amid the indulgence of a fresh sorrow. But at the end of an hour, when I recalled your words and tones, and the gestures accompanying them, I was seized with shame for my boorish conduct. You had been present at the funeral, had even gazed with deep interest at the face of the dead: what was more natural than that you should marvel how that queenly head could rest on the hard pillow of an almshouse coffin, though the mourning of a whole city followed it? And how could you suspect that the man to whom you applied for information suffered most keenly from the universal loss, and at that hour had so bitter a taste of the earth-mold on his tongue that he could not have uttered a word, had his own brother accosted him? When I clearly perceived this, and had partly regained my calmness, I hurried to the hotel, firmly intending to apologize for my incivility and tell you at least enough to have enabled you to understand my sorrowful obduracy. You had already continued your journey. I only found your name in the landlord's book, and doubly regretted my unseemly conduct. I was familiar with some of your books, and said to myself that you, of all men, could not have spoken from mere empty curiosity, but from genuine interest in everything relating to human nature, and you, if any one, would have been capable of feeling with me that the death of such a woman is a loss to the whole world. What had happened could not be altered, but, to somewhat alleviate the discomfort of my regrets, I began the very next day to write down, for my justification and penance, everything I had left unsaid, intending to lay it before you and thereby obtain absolution for the sin of silence I had formerly committed. I meant to be very brief. But my heart took possession of my pen, and the short narrative of this remarkable life has become a shapeless "history in detail," whose swelling daily alarmed me, though I was unable to confine the overflowing torrent of memories into a narrower channel. I have spent a whole year in writing, as I only found leisure for it during a few evening hours, and often for weeks together could not find courage to summon up the spirits of the departed. Will you have patience to read to the end? Far more important persons and destinies have passed before your notice, and you will more than once have occasion to smile at the value attached to apparently trivial incidents by a person whose horizon is so limited as that of my insignificant self. Besides, I am a clumsy writer, and do not understand the literary art of polishing even a pebble till in the sunlight it looks like a costly gem.