“My dear Fräulein Schöntag:--I am surprised that you are unaware of a rumour which the very sparrows twitter from the house-tops here. Everybody whispers and peers and is astonished, and dares not trust the evidence of his senses. Hence to spare you unnecessary circumlocutions I shall proceed at once to the point. You may remember that I left Hamburg a week before Christian Wahnschaffe, and rented a comfortable apartment for us both in Berlin. Since we had both determined to study medicine there, I had every reason to suppose that as long as our relations were harmonious we would have a common household. So I waited for him, and he came at last; but he did not come alone. He brought a woman with him. Here words fail me. I use the word woman because my consideration for you forbids me the use of any other. And yet how shall I convey the true state of affairs, if I shrink back from the unchangeable facts? The truth cannot remain hidden. This person’s name is Karen Engelschall. He rescued her in a state of hopeless degradation from some harlots’ haunt near the harbour. She is a characteristic outcast. Her appearance is coarse and her manners repulsive. She expects to be confined shortly. She was in the power of a ruffian who maltreated her and beat her; whenever she thinks of him she shakes with terror and horror. She is between thirty and thirty-two years old, but she looks older. One look at her face suffices to convince one that she is familiar with every vice and with every crime. “My dear young lady, pray do not stop here as you would stop listening were I saying these things to you. The words I have written down are brutally frank, and your imagination, unaccustomed to such images, may identify me with the horrors I am forced to evoke. But I shall be patient, if it be so, until your impressions become sufficiently clarified to do me justice. What I have said is only an introduction, and I must proceed.