"The festal time of life!" said Sigmund; and after a pause, raising the gla.s.s to his lips, he added:

"Gone, gone!"

"You have no cause to complain," said Wolf consolingly; "youth is past, but you have used it well. A great name in science, an honourable position, comfortable circ.u.mstances----"

Sigmund smiled sorrowfully and pointed to his bald head.

"Yes, my friend," cried Wolf, "we must make no unreasonable demands on life. Luxuriant locks, and a well-paid professorship, teeth and celebrity, youth and orders, prosperity, successes of all kinds, these we cannot have unless we are born to royal rank."

"When we consider how much we strive and how little we attain! What we dream, and to what realities we waken."

"Sigmund, you are unjust. Thirteen years ago did you imagine, in your boldest expectations, more than you have now attained?"

"Perhaps not. But, to have it afford me pleasure, I ought to have attained it immediately after that time."

"Of course we are more weary when we reach the goal than at the start."

"But this weariness very materially diminishes our pleasure in having reached it."

"Ah, I know the one thing wanting for your happiness," cried Wolf.

"Well?"

"A wife."

"Oh! you have no right to preach marriage, since you have remained a bachelor yourself."

"I am three years younger than you."

"But you are thirty-seven."

"True," replied Wolf, and for a time remained silent and thoughtful.

Then he continued:

"What would you have? Fate destines us to live in a foreign country, without family intercourse, far from the circle with which one is united by early memories and the first affections of the heart; we do not definitely seek, Fate does not help us find. We adjust our lives to habits which really leave no room for a wife, and so the years flit by till some day we discover that we are bachelors and that it is too late to change."

"That is exactly my case; I did not suppose it was yours also."

"With me," replied Wolf, "something else is added. Recollections which make marriage rather dreaded than desired. We know how we have been loved, and fear that we shall not find such love again. We compare in advance a virtuous wife with the woman whose distant image is somewhat transfigured by the past, and confess that we have been completely spoiled for the part of a husband content to sit phlegmatically in the chimney corner."

"You still think of Helene?" cried Sigmund in surprise.

"Why shouldn't I?" replied Wolf, "you also remember her, as I see."

"True," Sigmund a.s.sented. "I have not forgotten her. She was a bewitchingly beautiful and charming woman. What a tempting mouth!

What wicked eyes! And her clever talk! Her merry disposition!

Wherever she was, she filled everything with life and animation."

Wolf gazed thoughtfully into vacancy, and made no reply.

"She loved you very dearly," Sigmund added.

Still Wolf remained silent.

"And you loved her."

"Yes," Wolf answered at last, drawing his fingers slowly through his red beard. "I loved Helene very dearly. So long as I was with her, I did not notice it, and when the child was born, I even felt greatly disturbed by the thought that I should now have her bound to me forever. Not until after we had separated did I discover how large a place she had filled in my life. And the more distant that time becomes, it grows larger instead of less. A reversion of all the laws of perspective."

"But an intelligible phenomenon," observed Sigmund. "Helene has become, in your remembrance, the embodiment of your youth, and the longing with which you think of her concerns your twenty-four years at least as much as she herself."

"It may be so. The fact is that I see Helene in a golden light of youth and careless happiness, and cannot think of her without tears."

"Do you know, friend Wolf, that you perhaps did wrong to leave her?"

"There are hours when I believe it. When we have found a creature whom we love, and who loves us in return, we ought on no account to give her up. We never know whether it will be possible to replace. And, after all, love is the only thing which makes life worth living."

"What would you have, Sigmund? That is the wisdom of mature years. At four and twenty we have not yet reached that knowledge. At that time I perceived only that I had picked Helene up in the Luxembourg gardens, that is, as it were, in the streets. I knew that I was not her first love--"

"But her only one," interposed Sigmund.

"So she said, yes. But I had the feeling that I owed her nothing.

Love for love. This I gave her, and she ought to ask nothing more.

Yet it was an extremely careless relation, and I fully realized its doubtful character. At that time I should have advised any one else in my situation to release themselves from it kindly, and--well, I gave myself the same counsel.

"Your heart, even then, must have told you that you were wrong, and I think your common sense tells you so now. After all, the reasoning of the heart and that of the intellect does not differ so widely as silly wise folk suppose."

Wolf made no answer.

"Do you remember," Sigmund began again, "when I came from Heidelberg to visit you thirteen years ago? It was my first trip to Paris. The city, its life, the people, everything produced an overpowering impression upon me. And in the midst of this frantic rush was the charming idyl; you and Helene. Your little room in the quiet street seemed like a magic isle in the roaring ocean. What was the name of that street?"

"The Rue St. Dominique."

"Yes. I should like to make a pilgrimage there to see the old house."

"Impossible. The house has been torn down. The street has disappeared. The magnificent Boulevard St. Germain now runs through there."

"So nothing is to be found again! Nothing is left of all the beautiful things which we experience, save the shadow of its memory in our souls!

We ought never to return to the scenes of past happiness, unless we are sure of finding them unchanged."

Sigmund was becoming more and more tender and sensitive. It was his nature.

He continued:

"How often I have lived over again the evening when you went to Dr.

Amandier's reception, and left me alone with Helene. I was very awkward. I did not know how I ought to treat her, and the more at ease she appeared, the more embara.s.sed I became. I paid her compliments, she laughed. Conversation was difficult, for I had no great knowledge of French. She took pity on me and sat down at the cottage piano. She played very prettily. Very often she turned round and smiled at me.

She was extremely bewitching, and my heart glowed. I envied you. I planned all sorts of base things. I paid court to her. I confess it now. You are not angry with me?"

"Don't fear," replied Wolf smilingly, "Helene told me about it as soon as I came home. I was not jealous of you."