since leafless, decked in their autumn mellowness. I immediately left Potsdam and little Very, and in another town, where important business was awaiting me, and by means of difficult circumstances and relations, I was soon again plunged into crude reality. "The living women," Maximilian pursued, while a sorrowful smile played on his upper lip, "the living women with whom I then came into unavoidable contact, how they tormented me, tenderly tormented me with their pouting, jealousy, and constant sighs. At how many balls must I trot round with them, in how much gossip must I mix myself! What restless vanity, what delight in lying, what kissing treachery, what envenomed flowers! These women spoilt all pleasure and love for me, and I was for some time a misogynist, who damned the whole sex. It went with me almost as with the French officer, who, in the Prussian campaign, only saved himself with the greatest difficulty from the ice-pits at Beresina, and since that retains such an antipathy to everything frozen, that now he thrusts away with disgust the sweetest and most delicious of Tortoni's ices. Yes, the remembrance of the Beresina of love that I passed through then spoilt for me, for a time, even the most charming ladies, women like angels, girls like Vanilla sherbert." "Pray, do not abuse women," exclaimed Maria. "That is a worn-out commonplace among men. In the end, to be happy, you need women after all." "Oh," sighed Maximilian, "that is true, certainly. But women, unfortunately, have only one way of making us happy, while they have thirty thousand ways of making us unhappy." "Dear friend," replied Maria, suppressing a little smile, "I am speaking of the concord of two souls in unison. Have you never experienced this joy? But I see an unaccustomed blush spreading over your cheeks. Tell me, Max."