know that it is thirteen years since our last meeting?" asked
Wolf.

"Thirteen years!" sighed Sigmund. "How many more times shall we
experience such a period?"

"Never again," replied Wolf, "the period from the twenty-fourth to the
thirty-seventh year."

"The festal time of life!" said Sigmund; and after a pause, raising the
glass 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 circumstances----"

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