Then Gerald said: “Lord, man, but what a following you have had! and what a number of people have got harmless pleasure out of developing the discovery which Tannhäuser first made, that inconsistency and mean-spiritedness may be found among the clergy and the churchgoers! You will thus continue to be a benefactor of your kind for centuries, I have not a doubt. Yet I sometimes fancy that inconsistency and mean-spiritedness may be found even among recognizedly depraved persons who do not go to any church at all. I find that every religion cows a number of its devotees into a thrifty-minded practice of generally beneficent virtues. The average of desirable qualities in the congregation of every church appears to me, after all, quite perceptibly higher than is that average among the regular customers of any brothel or the clients of the public hangman. I do not deny that my discovery also is, from any æsthetic standpoint, revolutionary. I confess that it is nowhere represented in romance, as yet, and that no conceivable realist can ever regard such a grotesque fancy with anything save loathing. But I believe that some day an intrepid handling of this daring theme will prodigally repay some very great innovator, and will become useful to romantic art.” And Gerald said also: “Moreover, you remain quite invaluable as a pretext and a palliation whenever youth hungers for its fling. Only, I must dare point out, my dear sir, that your second century-long fling was, by the best people, unavoidably, felt to be excessive. All of us, more or less, have had our flings: even so, a fling needs to be conducted, and above all to be wound up, with some discretion. It ought to be high-hearted and lyrical in every feature: it ought especially to have the briefness of the lyric. And it ought not, no, it really ought not, to wind up in the Hörselberg. Now I, too, my friend, for example, have had my fling. But I have had it in a quiet, self-controlled and gentlemanly way, without overdoing the thing. Thereafter I settled down,—just temporarily, to be sure, but still I have settled down,—in no lewd and feverish Hörselberg, but here, where a contented husband risks no further chance of becoming useful to romantic art.” “It is possible for one to exist, but not for anybody to live, here!” replied Tannhäuser, scornfully, as his wild gaze swept over the still stretches of Mispec Moor. “Allow me!” said Gerald, with the tiniest of smiles; and he perched his rose-colored spectacles upon the beaked high nose of Tannhäuser. There was a pause. And Tannhäuser sighed. “I see,” said the knight then, “a quiet little home of your own, in the country, with your wife and with the kiddies, too, I daresay. And with fresh vegetables, of course, right out of your own garden.”