I noticed, in the course of time, a slight change in the manner of my customers and friends. The former transacted their business briefly, without an unnecessary word; and the latter appeared to avoid me, as if they scarcely wished to know me any longer. It was very amusing. In less than a year after my father’s death, my mother died. It was thought by some that my father’s death had something to do with her decline, but how that could be I never could understand. _The Merrymakers Are Suddenly Sobered_ The night of the day on which she died was the night fixed for a feast at the house of one of my friends. After looking for a moment into the room where she lay, I dressed myself carefully for the occasion, and found myself thrilled with pleasant anticipation. A large and merry company met at table at my friend’s house; I talked in my best manner; and whatever coldness I might have observed before was dispelled in the general gayety. Toward the close of the banquet, I chanced to remark across the table that my mother had that day died. The effect of this remark was astonishing. As it passed from one to another, silence fell upon the company. I wondered if I had made some blunder. I endeavored in vain to relieve the awkwardness of the moment by changing the subject and commencing a story with which I had never failed to provoke a laugh; but in this case it provoked not so much as a smile; I was absolutely perplexed. The party soon broke up in what appeared to be confusion, and I went home to enjoy in my own room the recollection of those lugubrious faces. When I was twenty-one, I was married to the Princess, and thenceforth the castle was my home. I sold the business which my father had left me, and settled down to a life of unbounded bliss with my dear Hyla, whom as a wife I found even more adorable than I had dreamed. I became the life of the castle. The faces of my new acquaintances always brightened in my company; I was the only one in that glittering society who never knew a dull or uneasy moment; my presence was like a ray of sunshine in the court. I noticed after a while that the Princess, my wife, began to respond to my constant gayety more carelessly; at times she would sit and look at me wonderingly, I knew not why. One day she asked me to accompany her on a little excursion in the city. She did not tell me where she meant to go, but I asked nothing; it was enough to be with her. I could not conceal my surprise, however, when she stopped our carriage at the entrance to the city’s poorest quarter; but I had no doubt she had planned some pleasant diversion, and I followed her, talking in my liveliest manner all the while. She herself was quite silent.