I have achieved a victory over myself.
The young lady is yours. Brother, I should have never possessed her in the first place, she has never been happy with me! Just in case you wonder if she has ever been happy with me. Brother! Brother! I tender her to your soul. Never forget all the things she had to endure to conquer you.
Treat the angel, ever, as your young love treats her now! Treat her as a precious legacy from your brother whom your arms can never more embrace. Live well!
Do not write to me, when you will celebrate your wedding. My wounds are still open. Only write to me how happy you are. My deed is my guarantee that God will not abandon me in a foreign land!”
The marriage would be celebrated. A year went by, the happiest for the married couple. Then, the wife died. Only on her deathbed, she would confess to her most trusted person the saddest secret of her heart: she has loved the fugitive brother more dearly.
Both brothers are still alive. The older one lives on his lands in Germany, where he remarried. The younger one remained in Batavia, and prospered into a happy, radiant man. He made a vow, never to marry, and kept this promise.
The whims of destiny
A true story
Aloysius G. was the son of a citizen of some standing in the service of X.; and the seeds of his happy genius would be developed early in his life through a liberal education. Still very young, however already endowed with fundamental knowledge, he entered the military services of his country, where he, as a young man of great merit and even greater hopes, did not remain long unnoticed. G. was in the full bloom of his youth, and so was the Prince; G. was a quick, enterprising mind; and so was also the Prince who, besides, liked such characters. Through a rich vein of wit and an abundance of science, G. knew to enthuse his surrounding; in every circle where he found himself, he knew to attract people through an ever equal joviality and above all, to dispense to whoever was around him, affability and liveliness; and the Prince knew to appreciate these virtues which he himself possessed in a high degree. Everything that he undertook, even his games, had the character of greatness: difficulties did not frighten him, and no setback could undermine his perseverance.
The value of these qualities were raised by a strong physical constitution, this perfect image of a blooming health and an herculean strength was controlled by a subtle, enthusiastic spirit; in his demeanour, walk and attitude, he possessed a natural majesty which was softened by a noble humility. If the Prince, above all, was attracted by the spirit of his young fellow; yet, his enjoyable external appearance irresistibly overcame his sensibility.
Their same age, the harmony of their inclinations and characters founded in a short time between both a relationship which possessed all the strengths of friendship and all the ardour and violence of passionate love. G. flew from one endeavour to another; however, these external assignments translated very deceitfully what he represented, in fact, to the Prince.
With surprising rapidity, his luck raised significantly, because the creator of the same luck was his adorer, his passionate friend. Not yet twenty years old, he saw himself at a height where the most fortunate court members would otherwise conclude their career.
However, his active soul could not either rest for long in the midst of an idle vanity, or content itself with the splendid retinue of a Grand to whom he filled enough fundamental duty with courage and energy.
While the Prince lost himself in the circle of pleasures, the young favourite buried himself into books and theatre plays and devoted himself with the diligence of someone carrying a burden, to his functions in which he finally became so skilled and so perfectly exercised, that any business which only somehow demanded any attention, went through his hands. He would soon, thanks to the Prince's favours, become First Counsellor, then Minister and finally, ruler of his Prince. Soon, there was not any more access to this last one than through him. He would appoint all the offices and dignities; all kinds of rewards would only be received from his hands.
G. ascended too young and with too rapid steps to this greatness to enjoy them with restraint. The height upon which he was looking at the court propelled his ambition; humility abandoned him as soon as his ultimate goal of becoming a minister was achieved.
The humble submission which the prominent people in the country, who were all superior to him by birth, respectability and fortune; as well as the deference which even the old people themselves, observed against him, a young man, dizzied his pride; and the unlimited power which he has taken possession of, made soon visible in his demeanour a certain hardness which would, from now on, become a trait of his character and which would remain in him through all his turns of luck.
For his friends, there was not any difficult or great enough service that could not be obtained from him; however, his enemies might only
tremble before him: for so much his benevolence was exaggerated on one side; on the other, he showed so little measure in executing his revenge. He used his authority lesser to enrich himself, than to make happy all the many people who paid homage to him as the creator of their prosperity; however, it was always his mood, not sense of justice which decided over the matter.
Through a highly experienced, commanding attitude, he estranged himself from the hearts of the ones who were mostly his obliged, while at the same time, he transformed all his rivals and all the secretly jealous people into equally irreconcilable enemies.
Among the ones who watched every of his steps with the eyes of jealousy and covetousness and already prepared calmly the tools directed at his downfall, was a Count from Piedmont, Joseph Martinengo; a person who was also from the Prince's retinue, whom G. himself has judged as a creature inoffensive and devoted to him, since he has put him at this position to let him fill his place in the enjoyments of his master of whom he started to have enough and with whom he would exchange very much his status of a favourite for a more fundamental occupation.
As he considered this man as his creation whom he could be returning into a state of nothingness from where he has pulled him, whenever he only wanted to; hence, he kept himself assured of Martinengo's fidelity through fear as well as through gratitude, and made precisely through this move, the same mistake which Richelieu fell into when he allowed Le Grand to appear on Louis the Thirteenth's chess play.
However, without having Richelieu’s spirit to improve this mistake, he also has to do with a more astute enemy than the French Minister had to fight against. Instead of taking advantage of his good luck and making his benefactor feel that he does not need his favours any more, Martinengo has rather more strived most carefully to entertain the semblance of his dependence and with a false submission, linked himself ever more and more to the creator of his luck.
At the same time, however, he did not miss to use any occasion which his position allowed him, to be more often around the Prince, to its full scope and to make himself, little by little, necessary and indispensable to this one.
In a short period, he knew by heart the state of mind in which his Prince was, watched carefully over to all those who received his confidence, and in an unnoticed manner, made himself into a position of acquiring his favour.
All these artifices which the Minister's nobler pride and naturally sublime soul has learned to despise, would be used by the Italian who did not disdain to use the lowest means to reach his goals.
As he was very well aware that the human being needed nowhere else a guide and help than on the way to vice, and that unsavoury confidences justified absolute secrecy; hence, he awoke in the Prince passions which until now has slumbered in him, and then pressed him
