Stories for Pleasure and Edification

eternally vanishes. — I know it well, that I will love one day — I feel it, that my heart is created for this gentle impulse original: "sanften Triebe", but where is the good mortal who can captivate my heart? — alas, I fear that it is only a phantom original: "Schattenbild," literally a shadow-image or silhouette for which I long.

So thought Adelaide; her days flowed by quietly and calmly, and her soul had never yet felt the tumult of passions; still the good girl tasted the quiet joys of innocence, tenderly loved by her parents original: "Aeltern," an archaic spelling of "Eltern", adored by all those who knew her. — Favored by fortune, nothing remained for her to wish for, except that Nature might have given her a better father.

Adelaide’s father was extremely dissolute original: "ausschweifend". Drunkenness and lust original: "Geilheit" — in this historical context, referring to lechery or lack of moral restraint exhausted his fortune and weakened his health. — Vain were the pleas original: "Vorstellungen," referring to formal protests or earnest remonstrances of his wife; in vain did Adelaide’s tears lead him back from his confusion; the power of habit tore apart again the sacred bonds that chained him to his family, and he plunged once more into the abysses that he dug for himself beneath his own feet.

Adelaide, passions, innocence, parents, father, drunkenness, lust, health, family