He talked openly about his former love for her as of something that was over and done with. And yet, whenever he did so, he felt a pain in his heart, an irritating, cruel pain, a remorseless pain that could never die.
“Everything on earth withers and dies,” he mused, “why should her favourite song alone be an exception to this? When one has heard it three hundred and sixty-five times, it becomes stale; it can’t be helped. But is my wife right when she says that our love, also, has died? No, and yet—perhaps she is. Our marriage is no better than a vulgar liaison, for we have no child.”
One day he made up his mind to talk the matter over with a married friend, for were they not both members of the “Order of the Married”?
“How long have you been married?”
“Six years.”
“And does matrimony bore you?”
“At first it did; but when the children came, matters improved.”
“Was that so? It’s strange that we have no child.”
“Not your fault, old man! Tell your wife to go and see a doctor about it.”
He had an intimate conversation with her and she went.