After a long absence, Sigmund had come from Washington to Europe to attend his sister's wedding, and availed himself of the opportunity, on the way from Havre to Mannheim, to visit his friend Wolf in Paris. The latter met him at the station and took him to his pleasant bachelor lodgings in the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette. Now, scarcely an hour later, the first overflow of mutual confidences had been exchanged, and the friends were seated comfortably at dinner.
"Do you know that it is thirteen years since our last meeting?" asked
Wolf.
"Thirteen years!" sighed Sigmund. "How many more times shall we experience such a period?"
"Never again," replied Wolf, "the period from the twenty-fourth to the thirty-seventh year."
"The festal time of life!" said Sigmund; and after a pause, raising the glass to his lips, he added:
"Gone, gone!"
"You have no cause to complain," said Wolf consolingly; "youth is past, but you have used it well. A great name in science, an honourable position, comfortable circumstances——"
Sigmund smiled sorrowfully and pointed to his bald head.
"Yes, my friend," cried Wolf, "we must make no unreasonable demands on life. Luxuriant locks, and a well-paid professorship, teeth and celebrity, youth and orders, prosperity, successes of all kinds, these we cannot have unless we are born to royal rank."
"When we consider how much we strive and how little we attain! What we dream, and to what realities we waken."