“There you are again! How beautifully you chatter away so superficially! No, my dear! Nowadays one no longer invites friends to spend a pleasant time with them, but to show them a new gown or to impress them with the new furnishings. The main thing is to poison the friend’s peace of mind. If the guest’s face betrays all the colours of envy then the hostess has attained the acme of delight. One might almost say that their dissatisfaction with their lot in life drives human beings on to stir up discontent in the hearts of others. This sowing of dragon’s teeth bears evil fruit. For at the next ‘tea’ the friend has a more beautiful dress, perhaps some other new sensation, and her husband’s achievements and income mount to supernatural heights, if one is to believe the hostess’ eloquent speeches. Finally, there is no possibility of out-trumping her and there is nothing left to do but, in a more moderate tone, to fight out the rivalry on a neutral soil. The restaurant or the café is this neutral soil.” “And what are your objections to this neutral soil?” “My objections? The people lose the greatest pleasure that they could derive from one another. At home it must happen now and then that the walls which separate the inmates from one another fall, the wrappings that encase our inmost being burst, and soul speaks to soul. At home it is possible to devote the time to the nobler delights that life has to offer. At one time there can be--as there was in your own parents’ home--a reading, on another occasion singing or music. And would it be such a terrible misfortune to spend one’s holiday with one’s family, to be one with them, reviewing the week that is past or playing with the children and being a child again? Don’t you see that you are giving up the gold of home-life and pursuing the fool’s-gold of pleasure outside the home? You do see it, you know I am right, and a little voice within you implores and pleads: ‘Stay home! Stay home! here you are safe and comfortable!’ But another power, a power that is stronger than you, drives you out, rushes you away from peace and quiet to restlessness, and whirls you about. And this whirl, you call ‘life.’ What have these empty pleasures to offer us? What inspiration for the work-a-day life do they leave behind? Is this anything less than just simply killing the hours? I don’t want to spin out the old stuff about the dangers of pleasures, getting over-heated, catching cold, overtaxing one’s nervous energies, losing one’s sleep, etc. As to these things, I must admit, there is a great deal of exaggeration. One ought not to fly from pleasures. But they ought to serve as inspiring exceptions to break, as it were, the day, just as a trip does.” “But, my dear doctor, now you’ve caught yourself in your own springe. Is not a trip a flight from the home?” The young woman laughed hilariously. But the doctor--now that he had assumed the rôle of preacher--did not permit himself to be put off or confused.