"I will not recount to you the ridiculous details of our pride and self-complacency. Enough! This audacious structure of conceit and Phariseeism received a blow one day that sent it tumbling in hopeless ruin about our heads. One evening, quite late, while I was sitting on my scaffolding in the palace, painting, my wife tottered up the steps looking like a picture of despair. She had not even stopped to reflect whether there were others about us who might overhear our conversation; her horror at the terrible discovery had so unbalanced her clear mind that she could not wait until I came home, but ran into a public building after me to tell me that our daughter--the only child we had, besides a fine, sturdy boy--a girl on whom I had lavished all my fatherly pride--that she, our jewel, so loved and treasured-- But I must retrace my steps a little, so that you may understand all this. "About this time my wife having come into possession of a very considerable fortune, we had begun, contrary to the Munich custom, to keep open house. As model beings, for such we fancied ourselves to be, we even regarded it as a sort of duty not to hide our light under a bushel. And then, besides, it was a pleasant enough thing to do, and even now I can't condemn our having rebelled against the narrow-hearted, inhospitable custom of the place, and admitted all manner of good friends to enjoy our domestic happiness with us. But even here our pride in our daughter played an important _role_. The girl was not beautiful, nor even what one would generally call pretty; she had inherited my flat features, little eyes, and large mouth. But something sparkled in those eyes that attracted everybody; and when the large red mouth, with its white teeth, expanded in a laugh that seemed to come straight from the heart, it was impossible to help feeling merry too. She had a remarkable talent for communicating her high spirits to her circle of young people, and this mirthfulness often reached the wildest extravagance; though, with her, it never went beyond proper limits, so that I, in my blind adoration, was wont to say to my wife, when she occasionally shook her head over it: 'Let the child alone, her nature will protect her better than all our art.' "I knew that others thought differently; indeed, I was often obliged to listen to warnings, more or less distinct, from this or that friend, to draw the reins tighter; a young untamed thing like her would be sure to bolt some day or other. For hints like these I had always the same superior smile, and only told my wife of them that I might laugh at the Philistinism of my colleagues. "The daughter of such a thoroughly well-balanced person, surely one could confidently leave her to herself, in cases where there would have been danger for weaker natures. "And now came the discovery of our shame! Now came the fearful fall from that height to which we had soared in our dreams!