"Congratulations!" said Johannes.
"Stop! not a word more. I know what you're going to say. What about the first one, you will say, have you forgotten the eternal love of your youth? That's exactly what you will say. May I then ask you, my good sir, in my turn, what became of my first, only and eternal love? Didn't she take a captain in the artillery? Moreover I will ask you another little question: have you ever, ever seen a case of a man getting the one he should have got? I haven't. There's a legend about a man whose prayers God heard in the matter, so that he was given his first and only love. But he didn't get much satisfaction out of it. Why not? you will ask again, and behold, I answer you: for the simple reason that she died immediately after—immediately after, do you hear? ha-ha-ha, instantly. So it is always. Naturally one doesn't get the right woman, but if it happens once in a while out of pure cussedness, then she dies straight away. There's always some trick in it. So then the man is reduced to providing himself with another love of the best available sort and there's no reason why he should die of the change. I tell you, Nature has ordained it so wisely that he bears it remarkably well. Just look at me."
Johannes said:
"I can see that you're doing well."
"Excellently for that matter. Look, feel and listen! Has a set of unenticing troubles swept over my person? I have clothes, shoes, house and home, wife and children—well, the hopeful anyhow. What was I saying?—with regard to my poetry I'll answer the question on the spot. Oh, my young colleague, I am older than you and perhaps a little better equipped by Nature. I keep my poems in a drawer. They are to be published after my death. But then you get no pleasure out of them, you will object? You are wrong again there, for in the meantime I delight my household with them. In the evening when the lamp is lit I unlock the drawer, take out my poems and read them aloud to my wife and the hopeful. One is forty, the other twelve, they are both enchanted. If you come and see us one day you will find supper and toddy. Now I've invited you. God preserve you from death."
He gave Johannes his hand. Suddenly he asked:
"Have you heard about Victoria?"
"About Victoria? No. Oh yes, I heard just now, a moment ago...."
"Haven't you seen her declining, getting greyer and greyer under the eyes?"
"I haven't seen her since last spring at home. Is she still ill?"