great uneasiness, fearing that it was a demand for money, when,
suddenly, she recognized Hermann's handwriting.

"You have made a mistake, my dear," said she. "This letter is not
for me."

"Oh, yes, it is for you," replied the girl, smiling very knowingly.
"Have the goodness to read it."

Lizaveta glanced at the letter. Hermann requested an interview.

"It cannot be," she cried, alarmed at the audacious request and the
manner in which it was made. "This letter is certainly not for
me," and she tore it into fragments.

"If the letter was not for you, why have you torn it up?" said the
girl. "I should have given it back to the person who sent it."

"Be good enough, my dear," said Lizaveta, disconcerted by this
remark, "not to bring me any more letters for the future, and tell
the person who sent you that he ought to be ashamed."

But Hermann was not the man to be thus put off. Every day Lizaveta
received from him a letter, sent now in this way, now in that.
They were no longer translated from the German. Hermann wrote them
under the inspiration of passion, and spoke in his own language,
and they bore full testimony to the inflexibility of his desire,
and the disordered condition of his uncontrollable imagination.
Lizaveta no longer thought of sending them back to him; she became
intoxicated with them, and began to reply to them, and little by