through my love for her I have entered another sphere of emotion which I do not hesitate to call a higher one. How foolish of me! I had the idea that she would draw me out of the mire, but she draws me down; she has drawn me down the whole time. Then it is not she but my love which draws upward, for there is a higher and a lower. Yes, the sage was right who said, 'Men marry to have a home to come to to, women marry to have a home to go out of.' Home is not for the woman but for the man and the child. All women complain of being shut up at home, and so does mine, although she goes about the whole morning paying visits, and haunting cafés and shops."

He began to work his way out of this slough of despond, and found himself on the side where the fault was not. But again he saw the heart-rending spectacle of his young wife on her knees begging him, with outstretched hands, not to kill her youth and brightness with his severity. Since it was foreign to his nature to act a part, he felt sure that she was not doing so, and felt again like a criminal, so that he was tempted to commit suicide, for the mere fact of his existence crushed her happiness.

But again his sense of justice was aroused, for he had no right to take the blame on himself when he did not deserve it. He was not hard but he was serious, and it was just his seriousness which had made the deepest impression on the young girl and decided her to prefer him to other frivolous young men. He had not wished to kill her joy; on the contrary he had done everything in his power to procure for her the quiet joys of domesticity; he had not even wished to deny her the ambiguous pleasure of the operetta, but had sacrificed himself and accompanied her thither. What she had said was therefore simply nonsense. And yet her grief had been so deep and sincere. What was the meaning of it?

Then came the answer. It was the girl's leave-taking of youth—which was inevitable. It was therefore as natural as it was beautiful—this outbreak of despair at the brevity of spring. But he was not to blame for it, and if his wife perhaps in a year was to become a mother, it was now the right time to bid farewell to girlish joys in order to prepare for the higher joys of maternity.

He had, therefore, nothing to reproach himself with, and yet he did reproach himself with everything. With a quick resolve, he shook off his depression and went to his wife, firmly determining not to say a word in his defence, for that meant extinguishing her love, but simply to invite her to reconciliation without a reckoning.

He found his wife on the point of being weary of solitude, and she would have welcomed the society of anyone, even that of her husband, rather than be quite alone.

Then they came to an agreement to give a party and to invite his friends and hers, who would be sure to come. This evening their need for domestic peace and comfort was so mutual that they agreed, without any difficulty, who should be invited and who not.

They closed the day by drinking a bottle of champagne. The sparkling drink loosened her tongue and now she took the opportunity to make him gentle and jesting reproaches for his egotism and discourtesy towards his wife. She looked so pretty as she raised herself on tiptoe above him, and she seemed so much greater and nobler when she had rolled all her faults upon him, that he thought it a pity to pull her down, and therefore went to sleep laden with all the defects and shortcomings which he had taken on himself.

When he awoke the next morning he lay still in order to think over the events of the past evening. And now he despised himself for having kept silence and refrained from defending himself. Now he perceived how the whole of their life together was built upon his silence and the suppression of his personality. For if he had spoken yesterday, she would have gone—she always threatened to go to her mother when he "ill-treated" her, and she called it "ill-treatment" every time that he was tired of making himself out worse than he was. Here they were building on falsity, and the building would collapse some day when he ventured on a criticism or personal remark regarding her.

Reverence, worship, blind obedience—that was the price of her love—he must either pay it, or go without it.

The party took place. The husband, as a good host, did all he could to efface himself and bring his wife into prominence. His friends, who were gentlemen, behaved to her in their turn with all the courtesy which they felt was due to a young wife.

After supper music was proposed. There was a piano in the house, but the wife could not play, and the husband did not want to. A young doctor undertook the task, and since he had to choose his own programme, he had resort to his favourite, Wagner. The mistress of the house did not know what he was playing but did not like the deep seriousness of it. When at last the thunder ceased, her husband sat uneasily there, for he could surmise what was coming.

As a ladylike hostess, she had to say something. She thought a simple "thanks" insufficient, and asked what the music was.

Then it came out—Wagner!

Her husband felt the look which he feared, which told him that he was a traitor who perhaps had wished to entice her to praise in ignorance "the worst music which she knew." During the time of their engagement she had certainly listened attentively to her fiance's long speeches in defence of Wagner, but immediately after their marriage, she had declared openly that she could not bear him. Therefore her husband had never played to her, and she feigned not to know that he could play. But now she felt insidiously surprised, and her husband received the beforementioned look which told him what he had to expect.

The guests had gone, and husband and wife sat there alone.

In his father's house he had learnt never to speak anything but good of departed guests, but rather to be silent. She had also heard something of the kind, but here she felt no need of restraint. So now she began to criticise his friends; they were, to put it briefly, tedious.

He gnawed his cigar in silence, for to dispute about likings and taste in this case would be unreasonable.

But she also considered them discourteous. She had been told that young men should say pleasant things.

"Did they venture to say anything unpleasant?" he asked, feeling uneasy lest anyone should have forgotten himself.

"No, not exactly."

Then came a shower of petty criticisms; someone's tie was not straight, another had too long a nose, another drawled, and then, "the fellow who played Wagner!"

"You are not kind," said her husband with a lame attempt to defend his friends.

"Yes! and the friends you trust in! You should only have heard and seen the words and looks which I heard and saw. They are false to you."

He continued to smoke and kept silence, but he thought how low he had sunk to deny his old and tried friends; how despicable it was to plead for forgiveness with his eyes for the performance of Wagner. His thoughts ran parallel with her loud chatter, and he spoke them in silence.

"You despise my friends because they do not court their friend's wife, do not pay her little compliments on her figure and dress; and you hate them because you feel how my strength grows in the circle of their sympathies for me. You hate them as you hate me, and would hate anyone else who was your husband."

She must have felt the effect of these thoughts, for her volubility slackened, and when he cast a glance at her, she seemed to have shrunk together. Immediately afterwards she rose, on the pretext that she felt freezing. As a matter of fact, she was trembling and had red flames on her cheeks.

That night he observed for the first time that he had at his side an ugly old woman who had enamelled her face with bright cosmetics and plaited her hair like a peasant woman.

She did not bother herself to appear at her best before him but was already free and easy and