"You jest, dear Countess; you are creating an idea whose bright colors will soon grow dim." "I do not jest. I could live alone while laboring for my daily bread, but not as the mistress of a castle and surrounded by the trifles and frippery of the fashionable world. To dress for the mere sake of seeing one's self in the glass, is not to my taste. In yonder cottage, I could live without a mirror. I need not look at myself, nor need another look at me; but if I am to live with the world, I must be wholly with it; at the reigning center, in the metropolis, or traveling. I must have all or nothing. Nothing else will make me happy. Nothing half-and-half or intermediate will satisfy me." Irma's tone was so determined that the baron saw how thoroughly in earnest she was, and that her words meant more than mere caprice or sport. "I must either subject myself to the world," said she, "or, despising it, put it beneath me. I must either be perfectly indifferent and regardless of the impression I produce upon others, or else afraid of every glance, even my own." The baron was silent, and evidently at a loss for words. At last he said: "I would gladly have gone to your father's house, but I know that he dislikes men of my class. I waited for you here, knowing that you would come to your friend. Pray answer me another question: Do you intend to return to court?" "Yes," said Irma, now, for the first time, firmly resolved upon returning. "It were ungrateful to act otherwise. Ungrateful to the queen and to--the king and all my friends. I feel sure, my friend, that I am not yet mature enough to lead a life in which nothing happens." They came to a seat. "Will you not sit down with me?" said Irma to the baron. They seated themselves. "When did you leave the capital?" "Five days ago." "And was everything going on as usual?" "Alas, not everything. Doctor Gunther has met with a sad affliction. Professor Korn, his son-in-law, died suddenly, having poisoned himself while dissecting a corpse." "While dissecting a corpse?" exclaimed Irma. "We all die of the poison of decay, but not so suddenly; those on yonder island and we--all of us." "You are very bitter." "Not at all. My head is filled with the strangest fancies. I became acquainted with a great law over there. "The law of renunciation?" "Oh, no; the justification of fashion." "You are mocking." "By no means. Fashion is the charter of human liberty and the journal of fashion is humanity's greatest boon." "What an odd conceit!" "Not at all. It is the simple truth. The frequency with which a man changes the material, cut and color of his clothes, proves his claim to culture. It is man alone who constantly clothes himself differently and anew. The tree retains its bark, the animal its hide, and, as the national and clerical costumes are both stereotyped, as it were, those who use them are regarded as belonging to an inferior, or less civilized class."