"Look here, dear fellow," he continued his lecture, "you know both the Fräulein von Dornau, Olga and Cäcilie; may heaven's and their mother's anger punish me! I love them both at once, and with the finest apothecary's scales could not discover the least preponderance of either in the balance."
"And what, then, do these ladies say to your simultaneous love?"
"I believe I have already somewhat converted them to my theory, even although the old Adam or the old Eve in them still rebels against it. On days so full of vigour as this, when the ocean glistens in the sunshine, and a fresh breeze blows hither from the north, when the feeling of strength fills my breast, then Olga is my calendar's saint. She possesses something fresh, natural, voluptuous in all her being, something Juno-like, and even the large eye is not wanting, which old Homer eulogises with such a base comparison. I will not say for a moment that a large mind speaks from that large eye, but Nature has made everything abundant about her. She reminds me of hotels, in which everything is arranged with the greatest comfort; nor must large plate glass windows be wanting there, either."
"That is, indeed," interposed Blanden, "quite a new form of praise of the fair sex, and our poets might go to school to you."
"She is purely sensual life," continued the Doctor, without letting himself be disturbed by this interlocutory remark. "All nature, instinct, little knowledge, no reason; she does not raise any special opposition even to my most daring views. It is quite different with Cäcilie: she is my calendar's saint for intellectual days; she is slighter, more refined; she has something Lacertian about her, that escapes one easily, that one would always grasp anew; everything about her has form, body and mind. She argues with me, she refutes, her eyes scintillate, and yet in the midst of the conflict she seems suddenly to lay down her arms; if her delicate lips do weave the most ingenious arguments wherewith to conquer me, the charm of submission lies already in her eyes. She is a Penelope; her mind weaves a web, that her heart ever again unravels. Olga acts by the charm of nature's body, Cäcilie by the charm of the spirit. I bear both in my heart; I stand as closely to the one as to the other. Shall I sacrifice one part of my being, in order to do homage to exclusive love?"
"We have," said Blanden, "no social forms in which a dual love could be lastingly secured; it is indeed a daring, yes, reprehensible innovation."
"Not at all," replied the Doctor. "It is the greatest secret of our society but certainly is only seldom spoken of; yet sometimes when you open books of the history of literature, in the lives of gifted men, you will find pages on which it is legibly written! Think of Bürger, of Doris and Molly; think of Schiller, of Charlotte and Caroline. How candid are the confessions of our great poets! I do not flatter myself I am the first who makes this great discovery, but I utter it fearlessly; this is Nature's law, which society outlaws, while it exercises its secret dominion undisturbedly."
"That may hold good during the stormy impetuous period of life," said Blanden. "I have experienced it in every quarter of the globe. Now I long for tranquillity, for restriction; I know that now in it alone can I find happiness, and I have no longing to lead either an Olga or a Cäcilie home, but a sweet, modest maiden who has not yet developed into independent womanliness, who is still capable of being formed, and growing up to twine herself around me."
"The old fable," replied Doctor Kuhl, scoffingly; "as if ever a girl was formed or changed by a man! Girls are the pure elementary spirits, but what they are, they are from the beginning. An elf will never become a nymph, and if one lives in the water and has a fish's tail, no power in the world will make her into a salamander with a sparkling golden crown."
"All the same," said Blanden, "I shall take an elf, and be satisfied with it."