u give way to them without a struggle."

Wilhelm hung his head. "You are right. It is foolish; for I see that I
do not love the girl deeply enough to spoil my life."

"Come now. You were more in love than you thought; but it is always so;
even in pure and passionless natures human nature is very strong, and
the first young and pretty girl who comes near enough to you brings out
all the dormant feelings, and reason disappears. People often do the
maddest things in this period of unrest, which they repent all their
after life. I have always mistrusted a first love. One must be quite
satisfied that it is for an individual, and not merely the natural
inclination for the other sex asserting itself. Your first love, my
poor Eynhardt, certainly belongs to this class. Your youthful
asceticism has had its revenge; now that your reason has got hold of
the reins again, the rebellion of your instinct will soon be subdued."

"I hope so," said Wilhelm.

"I am sure of it. There is no doubt about the end of crises like these,
and it really is difficult to take the misery they cause seriously,
although it is bad enough while it lasts. It is the most overpowering
and yet the least dangerous of diseases. The patient gives himself up
for lost, and the doctor can hardly help smiling, because he knows that
the malady will only run its course, and will stop like a clock at its
appointed time. He can, however, hasten the cure, if he can bring the
patient to his own conviction."

He was silent, and seemed sunk in thought. Then he began again
suddenly: "I will read you a story about this; nothing is more
instructive than a clinical picture."

Bhani sprang to her feet and hastened toward him, but he put her aside
with a word, and going into his study he appeared again bearing a folio
bound in leather and with the corners fastened with copper.

"This is my diary," he said. "I have had the weakness to keep this
since I was sixteen. There are three volumes already, and I began the
fourth when I returned to Germany. Listen now, and don't put yourself
under any constraint. I will laugh with you."

He opened the folio, and after a short search began to read. It was the
romance of his early life, written in the form of a diary, simply told
at some length. Quite an ordinary story of an acquaintanceship made
with a pretty girl, the daughter of a bookseller, who sat next to him
in a theater. Meetings out of doors, then the introduction to her
pare