did not love her. On account of this jealousy she had been obliged to
cease writing to me. She was stupid at that time and did not know for
what the 'to be kept till called for' had been invented--

"Then we reached my lodgings. I was as soft-hearted and imbecile as a
student at his first love-tryst. I did not wish to degrade this
meeting to the level of a commonplace bachelor adventure. I wanted to
keep the bloom and the fragrance of the flower.

"I began to speak of the past."

Alas, dear Sigmund!

"She first said that our meeting occurred in the year 1878. When I
clasped my hands and mournfully exclaimed: 'Then you have forgotten
that it was in 1874,' she was a little confused, but recovered with the
swift remark: 'A date is of no importance, the main thing is that we
were happy, oh, very happy!' I asked if she remembered our little nest.

"'Certainly!' she cried, clapping her hands in delight. She remembered
that it was in the Rue St. Dominique, but when I attempted to win from
her a description of the furniture, the view from our two windows, she
evaded it. I turned the conversation to you--I don't mention it to
offend you--but there was not the faintest recollection! Completely
forgotten! I spoke of Tannemann--nothing, nothing! Not until I
recalled the little dog could she remember him, but it was especially
the animal, the giver very dimly. I alluded to our excursion--her eyes
sparkled, all the details, even the most minute incidents came back to
her, and she related with the utmost fluency, in a rapture of delight,
a picnic with breakfast in a hut built of branches and an extravagant
quantity of wine--which we had never had together.

"What a shower-bath! My teeth fairly chattered from it. She noticed my
coldness, asked if I had any other love, became irritated when I
pretended not to hear the question, finally said that she must go, and
was thoroughly offended when I did not detain her. She went away
without mentioning another meeting and I let her go, without even
asking where she lived.

"I shall hardly see her again. I regret that I met her. To-day is the
first time that I have wholly lost Helene, and the loss gives me pain.
It was a beautiful self-delusion, and I would gladly have treasured it
to my life's end.

"You were right when you said that we ought not return to the scenes of
former happiness unless we were sure of finding them unchanged.

"A thousand kind remembrances fr