"Then I moved to Hamburg. There the same wild life was continued on a somewhat larger scale. You will readily spare me the details. Now, when I think back on that time, I have to stop and reflect whether it really could have been _I_ who wasted his days and nights in such shameful dissipation with such worthless companions. They were my Prince Hal days. 'The wild oats had to be sown.' But now I thank my good star for having led me safely, though by dubious ways, past all that kind of crime and wrong-doing which could not have been covered by this trite saying." "Well, one evening, when my aching head and my gnawing rage at my own idiocy unfitted me for anything else, I went to the theatre, and saw for the first time an actress who was just entering on an engagement there. The piece was a flat, sensational, social drama, in which she took the part of the noble, generous, young wife, who plays the saving angel to the dissipated husband. It was a moral lecture that appealed directly to my own case; and as the sinner, even in his deepest degradation, seemed an enviable creature as compared with me--for he invariably fell into the arms of his guardian angel--I could not help wishing myself in his place; and so was led to examine that angel very carefully. "She was certainly well worth looking at. A most charming young person, with a figure, a bearing, and a certain indolent grace in all her movements, such as I had never seen before. In addition to all this a childlike face, with dove-like eyes, and such an innocent, plaintive mouth, that you would have been willing to storm the very heavens just to bring a smile to those pretty lips. When this really appeared at the close of the play (for the young husband reformed), it was all over with me. As I noticed that half the audience--indeed, the entire male part--had gone mad over her, I considered my sudden infatuation not extraordinary; especially as I have a way of not being very slow in my feelings of love and hate. You have had experience of that yourself." He paused for a moment, and gave her a hasty glance. But she did not stir, so breathlessly was she listening to him, her eyes fixed on the head of the dog, who lay quietly sleeping at her side. "I will spare you any account of the further course of my love affair," he continued. "It is enough that in eight days I gained my case by ardor and flattery: and Lucie was my betrothed.