"You know, my dear friend," said I, "that I am a marriage fanatic, with good reason. If I neglected to preach its gospel to the heathen this evening, it was only from a general disinclination to speak where I am not altogether at ease. I feared, too, that my usual eloquence on the subject might leave me in the lurch. But, truly, it would not be the first time that I have argued alone against a whole gang of obstinate bachelors." "I admire your courage," he replied. "For my part, I am always hindered from contradicting the scoffers by an absurd heart-beating; it seems to me a desecration to gossip of the school in which one learns to fathom the deepest and most beautiful secrets of human life." "You are quite right," said I, "and I have often reproached myself for being beguiled into discussing in prose, after the manner of a scientific problem, what one may properly confess only in verse. And yet certain silly speeches always excite me to protest again. When I hear it said that marriage is the death of love; that the obligation to fidelity quenches passion; and that, since no man can master his heart, even the best should hesitate before forming a life-tie, my vexation at the foolish babble runs away with my reason, and I begin to speak of things which one regards as mere exaggeration unless he has himself experienced them." To this he did not reply, and we walked silently side by side. I observed that he was lost in recollections which I did not wish to disturb. I knew nothing of his marriage, except that he had lost his wife many years before, and mourned her as if it were but yesterday. An old lady who had known her told me that she was an irresistible person, with eyes which no one who had once looked into them could ever forget. Her daughter, lately married, I had met once at a social affair; she impressed me as an amiable, but very quiet, young woman. L. had been a military man in his younger days; but being severely wounded in the Schleswig-Holstein war, he had withdrawn to a country estate and passed his best years there with his wife and child. After he became a widower, a spirit of unrest seemed to drive him over the earth, and it was only from time to time that he made a brief appearance among his old friends. He was a stately, handsome man even yet. His hair, although streaked with gray, stood thick and curly above his high, bronzed forehead, and in his eyes there gleamed a quiet fire which told of imperishable youth. At the next crossing he stopped. "My way properly leads down there," said he, "but, if you do not object, I will accompany you for a distance. My sleep has not been worth much for some time, and 'In that sleep what dreams may come' seldom amount to anything. Besides, I am going away in a few days. Who knows when we can chat with each other again." We set forth on our, or rather on my way, but for a long while the talk would not take the right channel.