"Has been my wife for six years," said Herr Wollnow. "You look at me with discreet astonishment; you have quickly calculated that the little dancer of those days cannot now be much more than twenty-five, and you set me down very correctly at some years over fifty--we will say fifty-six. But we Jews--"
"Are you a Jew?" asked Gotthold.
"Of the purest descent," replied Herr Wollnow; "didn't you perceive that, when I locked your money up in my desk so quickly just now? Of the purest Polish descent, although out of love for my wife, who declared that she had suffered enough from Judaism, and also from business motives, I have taken the step, a very easy one for me, from one positive religion which was indifferent to me, to another that was no less so. But I was going to say that we Jews, or we men who are educated in the Jewish faith, are as unromantic in regard to marriage as everything else, but we keep to the law; I mean by that the law of nature, which is not at all romantic, but very sober, and consequently all the more logical."
"Then you think that a great difference between the ages of the husband and wife is one of the laws of nature which should be strictly observed?"
"By no means, only that under certain circumstances it is no impediment."
"Certainly not, but--"
"Allow me to explain my opinion by some statistics. I am descended from a very long-lived family. My grandfather--he could not tell either the place or time of his birth positively--must have been more than a hundred years old when he died, blind and crippled, it is true, but with his mental powers almost entirely unimpaired. My father was ninety. I, who no longer needed to toil and moil for myself, was able six years ago, when in my fiftieth year, to marry, and thus I have the expectation of seeing my little family, even if an addition should be bestowed upon us, grow up to maturity, supposing that I attain my eightieth year, to which, as you will admit, I have on the father's side the most well-founded title."
Herr Wollnow rested his broad shoulders comfortably against the back of his chair, and passed his hands over his high forehead and thick black hair, in which Gotthold could not yet perceive the smallest thread of gray. "That is," said he, "if I understand you rightly, marriage ought to be in the first place arranged for the welfare of the children, and therefore it is only necessary to consider the signs of the times in and for which the children are born."
"Certainly," replied Herr Wollnow; "in the first place, I might almost say in the first and last."
"And the husband and wife?"