"An unavoidable one, or at least in many cases not to be avoided. You will admit that most marriages must commence with this illusion, which is more or less vivid according to the nature and imaginative power of the dreamer. There are so few persons who do not desire to be specially rewarded for paying their debts to nature and society. When they perceive that the question of marriage concerns a very different object from the realization of their dreams, and that this object is the more easily attained the less they give themselves up to fancies, the majority, of course, will at first rub their eyes in some little perplexity, but no longer take the affair tragically, but as it is; and these are the marriages which I--with all due respect for humanity, which certainly consists of average mortals--call average marriages, and which in Germany, England, America, nay, even in France and Italy, wherever I have wandered in the civilized world, I have always found as much alike as two eggs. It is, take it all in all, very dry, but very healthful prose; there is much modest quiet happiness, and of course also much, very much sorrow; but none which would not befall a human being as such. I mean the frail, easily injured creature at last doomed to death--and very little which results from the marriage. But this misery is found in overwhelming measure when people wish to realize, nay to transform into a still more brilliant reality, the dream they have enjoyed as lovers. How many heart-breaking conflicts, how many vain struggles, how much strength wasted which was greatly needed for far more important purposes, how much senseless and useless cruelty towards one's self and others! You see I speak only of those who take life earnestly, not of the multitudes of stupid people who are incapable of any moral idea, nor of the, if possible, still greater number of frivolous natures; who snap their fingers at all morality." "I know it," replied Gotthold; "but why should not earnest, honorable human beings, when they become conscious of their mistakes, seek to cast out the errors that have crept into the score of their lives while there is time?" "In what way?" "By restoring each other's freedom."