nts' house, and then the betrothal. The Revolution of 1848 broke
out, and the many demands on the young doctor turned his thoughts away
for the time from plans of marriage. His fiancee greatly admired the
fiery orator and fighter at barricades, and told him so, in
enthusiastic speeches and letters. The father, however, had no sympathy
with reactionaries, and soon conceived a violent antipathy for his
future single-minded son-in-law. As long as the democratic party held
the upperhand, he kept his feelings in the background, making
nevertheless endless pretexts for delaying the marriage. The party of
reactionaries broke up, however, and the bookseller declared war; he
forbade the young democrat to enter his house, and even denounced him
to the police. The young lovers were, of course, dreadfully unhappy,
and vowed to be true to one another. He determined to go away, and
tried to persuade her to go with him. She was frightened, but he was
audacious and insisted. They would go to London, and be married there;
he could earn his living, and they would defy the father's curse. All
was arranged; but at the last moment her courage failed, and she
confessed all to the tyrant, who set the police on the young man's
track, and sent the girl away to relations in Brandenburg. The
unfortunate lover's letters were unanswered. He left Germany, and heard
after some weeks that his betrothed was married to a well-to-do
jeweler, apparently without any great coercion.

This story was disentangled from letters, conversations, accounts of
opinions in the form of monologues, interviews, visits, and
descriptions of sea-voyages; all sufficiently commonplace. But what
excitement these daily effusions showed! What boundless happiness about
kisses, what cries of anguish when the storm broke! Would it not be
better to commit suicide and die together? Was it possible that this
quiet man with his apathetic calm could ever have been through these
stormy times? It did not seem credible, and Schrotter seemed conscious
of the immense difference between the man who had written the book and
the man who now read it. His voice had a slightly ironical sound, and
he parodied some of the scenes in reading them, by exaggerating the
pathos. But this could not last long. The real feeling which sighed and
sobbed between the pages made itself felt, and carried him back from
the cold present to the storm-heated past; he became interested, then
grave, and if he had not s