And I tossed off a tumblerful of thin Rhine wine, which gurgled in my empty stomach like bubbles in a duck puddle. "This is not the way to muster up tenderness," I thought, looking around longingly for the sherry. Then I pulled myself together. "Please eat something," I said, satisfied that I had done something marvellous. She nodded and lifted her spoon to her mouth. After the soup came some excellent fish, Rhine salmon if I am not mistaken, and the sauce had the proper admixture of brandy, lemon juice and capers. Delicious, in short. Then came venison. Pretty good even if a little too fresh still. Well, on this point opinions differ. "Do eat something," I said again, pursing my lips so that people should think that what I was whispering was a compliment or something sentimental. No, that sort of thing didn't get me any farther. Already I had disposed of the second bottle of the thin Rhine wine and began to swell like a balloon. I looked around for Lothar, who had inherited from his father a scent for everything drinkable, but he had been seated somewhere downstairs. Then I was saved by a toast, which gave me a chance to stand up. On my rounds I discovered a small but select company of sherry bottles which the old man had hidden behind a curtain. I picked up two of them quickly and started to pour courage into me. It was a slow process but it succeeded. I can stand a good deal, you know, gentlemen. After the venison came a salmi of partridges. Two successive dishes of game are not quite the right thing, but they were mighty tasty. At just about this point something like a wall of mist loosened itself from the ceiling and descended slowly--slowly. Now I was tossing gallantries right and left. I tell you, gentlemen, I was going it. I called my bride "enchantress" and "charming sprite," and told a rather broad hunting story, and explained to my neighbours of what use the experiences are that a bachelor of today acquires before marrying. To be brief, gentlemen, I was irresistible. But the wall of mist kept sinking deeper and deeper. It was like in mountain regions, where first the highest summits disappear and then little by little the mountain side, one ledge after another. First the lights in the candelabra got reddish halos round them. They looked like small suns in a vapoury atmosphere with rainbow rays radiating from them. Then gradually everybody sitting behind the candelabra talking and rattling forks disappeared from sight and sound. Only at intervals did a white shirt bosom or a bit of a woman's arm gleam from the "purple darkness"--isn't that what Schiller calls it? Oh, yes! Something else struck me. My father--in--law was running around with two bottles of champagne, and whenever he saw an entirely empty glass, he would say, "Please do have some more. Why don't you drink?" "You old fraud!" I said when he bobbed up back of me, and I pinched his leg, "is that what you call letting it flow in rivulets?"