whom I kept in constant attendance about matters of no importance,
were supposed to be the bearers of my despatches. I only received
company in the evening under the trees of my garden, or in my
saloons, after Bendel's assurance of their being carefully and
brilliantly lit up.

My walks, in which the Argus-eyed Bendel was constantly on the watch
for me, extended only to the garden of the forest-ranger, to enjoy
the society of one who was dear to me as my own existence.

Oh, my Chamisso! I trust thou hast not forgotten what love is! I
must here leave much to thine imagination. Minna was in truth an
amiable and excellent maiden: her whole soul was wrapped up in me,
and in her lowly thoughts of herself she could not imagine how she
had deserved a single thought from me. She returned love for love
with all the full and youthful fervour of an innocent heart; her
love was a true woman's love, with all the devotion and total
absence of selfishness which is found only in woman; she lived but
in me, her whole soul being bound up in mine, regardless what her
own fate might be.

Yet I, alas, during those hours of wretchedness--hours I would even
now gladly recall--how often have I wept on Bendel's bosom, when
after the first mad whirlwind of passion I reflected, with the
keenest self-upbraidings, that I, a shadowless man, had, with cruel
selfishness, practised a wicked deception, and stolen away the pure
and angelic heart of the innocent Minna!

At one moment I resolved to confess all to her; then that I would
fly for ever; then I broke out into a flood of bitter tears, and