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Karl Ludwig Sand - Celebrated Crimes by Alexandre Dumas père
page 15 of 74 (20%)
are able to follow the young enthusiast, not only in all the actions of
his life, but also in all the thoughts of his mind and all the
hesitations of his conscience. In it we find his whole self, simple to
naivete, enthusiastic to madness, gentle even to weakness towards others,
severe even to asceticism towards himself. One of his great griefs was
the expense that his education occasioned to his parents, and every
useless and costly pleasure left a remorse in his heart. Thus, on the
9th of February 1816, he wrote:--

"I meant to go and visit my parents. Accordingly I went to the
'Commers-haus', and there I was much amused. N. and T. began upon me
with the everlasting jokes about Wonsiedel; that went on until eleven
o'clock. But afterwards N. and T. began to torment me to go to the
wine-shop; I refused as long as I could. But as, at last, they seemed to
think that it was from contempt of them that I would not go and drink a
glass of Rhine wine with them, I did not dare resist longer.
Unfortunately, they did not stop at Braunberger; and while my glass was
still half full, N. ordered a bottle of champagne. When the first had
disappeared, T. ordered a second; then, even before this second battle
was drunk, both of them ordered a third in my name and in spite of me. I
returned home quite giddy, and threw myself on the sofa, where I slept
for about an hour, and only went to bed afterwards.

"Thus passed this shameful day, in which I have not thought enough of my
kind and worthy parents, who are leading a poor and hard life, and in
which I suffered myself to be led away by the example of people who have
money into spending four florins--an expenditure which was useless, and
which would have kept the whole family for two days. Pardon me, my God,
pardon me, I beseech Thee, and receive the vow that I make never to fall
into the same fault again. In future I will live even more abstemiously
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