"You are so ignorant of woman, _mon cher enfant_," she said, smoothing his brown curly hair; "you are really an infant, without judgment or reason where they are concerned." "And you are so ignorant of man," thought Lassalle, for his repudiation of the Russian girl had brought up vividly the vision of his enchanting Brunehild. Did the Countess then think that a man could feed for ever on memories? True, she had gracefully declined into a quasi-maternal position, but a true mother would have felt more strongly that the relation was not so sufficing to him as to her. The Countess seemed to divine what was passing through his mind. "If you could get a wife worthy of you," she cried. "A brain to match yours, a soul to feel yours, a heart to echo the drum-beat of yours, a mate for your dungeon or your throne, ready for either--but where is this paragon?" "You are right," cried Lassalle, subtly gratified. After all Helene was a child with a child's will, broken by the first obstacle. "Never have I met a woman I could really feel my mate. If ever I have kindled a soul in one, it has been for a moment. No, I have always known I must live and die alone. I have told you of my early love for the beautiful Rosalie Zander, my old comrade's sister, who still lives unmarried for love of me. But I knew that to marry her would mean crippling myself through my tenderness. Alone I can suffer all, but how drag a weaker than myself into the tragic circle of my destinies? No, Curtius must leap into his gulf alone." His words soothed her, but had a sting in them. "But your happiness must be before all," she said, not without meaning it. "Only convince me that you have found your equal, and she shall be yours in the twinkling of an eye. I shouldn't even allow love-letters to intervene--you are so colossal. Your Titanic emotions overflow into hundreds of pages. You are the most uneconomical man I ever met." He smiled. "A volcano is not an ant-heap. But I know you are right. For Lassalle the Fighter the world holds no wife. If I could only be sure that the victory will come in my day." "Remember what your own Heraclitus said: 'The best follow after fame.'" "Yes, Fame is the Being of Man in Non-Being. It is the immortality of man made real," he quoted himself. "But--" She hastened to continue his quotation. "'Hence it has always so mightily stirred the greatest souls and lifted them beyond all petty and narrow ends.'" "The ends are great--but the means, how petty! The Presidency of a Working-Men's Union, one not even to be founded in Berlin." "But yet a General German Working-Men's Union. Who knows what it may grow to! The capture of Berlin will be a matter of days." "I had rather capture it with the sword. Bismarck is right. The German question can only be solved by blood and iron."