"You scarcely understand as yet all that I mean," continued the invalid quietly. "That you'll always remain his friend is a matter of course. But, to give me any real comfort, you will have to make a sacrifice."
"A sacrifice? As if I would not--do you know me so little?"
"I know you to be the most unselfish man under the sun," said Balder smiling. "But it is just this very habit of never thinking of yourself, that for his sake and mine you must lay aside, at least so far as you can do so without being faithless to yourself. Do you know what will happen if you go on as you have been doing? In two years, in spite of your friendship, you'll not set foot in the tun."
"I? But tell me--"
"It's a very simple matter: because you'll be thinking of your friends either behind prison bars or in America. Dear Franzel, must I tell you why you're not fond of living? Because you believe that a man only truly lives when he becomes a martyr to his convictions, I have always loved you for this belief and yet I believe it a mistaken one. Test it awhile; say to yourself that you aid many more by living than you could by your martyrdom, and you will see that a man can guard his post very bravely and self-sacrificingly, without fool-hardily summoning the enemy by alarm shots. It would be an inexpressible comfort to me, if you would promise for two years to let alone all 'agitation' and see how affairs really are. There are currents in which it's a useless waste of strength to row, because the boat floats onward of its own accord, I know what it will cost you to do this. But it would be a great joy if this last wish--"
"Say no more," cried the other suddenly pausing before his friend, with his tearful eyes turned toward him--"Balder is it possible, that you--that you are about to leave us? And can you believe if that should happen, that I could continue my life as if nothing had occurred. When men can no longer behold the sun--do you suppose I could--that I would--" Words failed him, he turned abruptly away and stood motionless beside the turning lathe.
"I did not mean that I thought you could live on, the same as before," said Balder in a lower voice. "But you need a substitute for what you resign. You must learn to be glad to live, and I think I know how you would learn to do so most quickly. You must take a wife, Franzel!"
"I? What can you be thinking about? How came such an idea into your head? Just at this time too--"
"Because it will soon be too late for me to earn a kuppelpelz[[4]] from you. True, I shall scarcely need it. I shall not feel cold where I lie. But I should like to know of you're being warmly sheltered. And I know from experience--I've been 'married' to Edwin---that the world looks much blighter seen with four eyes than with two."
"You see," he continued, as his friend still stood motionless, boring a hole in the bench with a point of a file--"Edwin will find a wife in time who will make him happy; then you would be left again with nothing but mankind to clasp to your heart, and beautiful and sublime as the idea is, it's not all you need--and that's why you get over excited, and the thought of martyrdom overcomes your judgment. So I think a little wife, who would know how to love and value you, would by her mere presence instruct you every day in the doctrine that Edwin has so often represented to you in vain: that you should husband your energies for the future and not prematurely sacrifice your life without cause. There is no danger of your becoming faithless to your convictions from mere selfish pleasure in your home. And then how can a socialist who knows nothing except from hearsay of family life, upon which basis the whole structure of society rests, who knows nothing of where the shoe pinches the father of a family, talk to married men about what they owe to themselves and others?"