For a little while Alexandra and Bertram sat silently side by side; then Alexandra said--
"We are at one in the conviction that it will be in the interest of ourprotégésif we vanish from the scene?"
"Absolutely," replied Bertram. "I suffer acutely already, and recognise the outrage that man is guilty of who would play Providence for others."
"In that case I should have been guilty too," said Alexandra, "but I am by no means dissatisfied with myself; on the contrary, I believe it is good that things have happened thus; it was necessary. And when you know all, you will admit that I am right. You must know it, for the sake of the future, which will still claim much from us. Listen in patience.
"I have rigidly adhered to your advice. I announced my departure for noon to-day; my maid was despatched with the luggage a little before ten; our host insisted upon escorting me in person to the town. Then I went to see Erna. We had a memorable conversation which I cannot reproduce to you in all its details, but the result was that Erna no longer doubted the sincerity of my desire for her happiness; but her pride revolted against receiving this happiness at my hands, or, if that be saying too much, she had the painful impression that her happiness could only be brought about at the cost of my own, in other words, that I was still in love with Kurt, and that my marriage to Herr von Waldor, which I announced to her as impending, was an act of resignation, if not of despair. Of course she did not give utterance to all this, nor did she even hint at it; these things one simply feels. And there was another thing that came between her and the prospect of calm happiness by Kurt's side. Dear friend, do not deny it any longer--not to me, even if to all the world besides--you are in love with Erna! Thank you for this pressure of the hand. It does not reveal a secret to me, and yet I thank you for it with all my heart. You owed me this satisfaction, as I have told you Claudine's story; and even as Claudine's story is buried in your bosom, so the story of a noble human heart shall be buried in mine."
Alexandra withdrew her hand with a cordial pressure from Bertram's. They were both too much moved to be able to speak for some time. At last Bertram said--
"And does Erna believe me to be in love with her, after all I have done to shake her conviction?"
"I should not assert that her faith has not been shaken," Alexandra replied, "but she was still under the sway of that intuitive feeling which guides us women wellnigh always aright, and which in her case betrayed itself in a hundred turns, every one of which had for its object your future welfare and happiness. And then, my friend, you did at last the very opposite of what you should have done to calm Erna, and to brighten her future. You may thank Heaven that Erna does not divine the real motive which influenced you; that between the two duels she sees a sort of mechanical connection of time and place, if I may say so, and not the real one. But for all that, if you had fallen in this duel, Erna would never have consented to an alliance with Kurt, and she would never in her heart have forgiven him for not being the first on the ground. Whether it was within the limits of possibility to have forestalled you, the woman's heart does not stop to inquire. The loved one must be not only the best and noblest and bravest of men, but the cleverest too; how he sets about it is his own concern! Dozens of duels have been fought in my immediate neighbourhood, and, I am sorry to say, I have been the direct cause more than once, so I had no difficulty in understanding the whole business. That old chatterbox, the ranger, was relating the circumstances to us at breakfast; I then sent for your servant, and, examining him, found out that you had held a long conversation with Kurt, which had been preceded by negotiations between Kurt and Herr von Busche; and last of all came that crackbrained person Fräulein von Aschhof, and confessed her horribly indiscreet statement to the Baron, and your remark, my friend, that you would try to settle the matter. I saw it all as clearly as though it had been acted before me. Then I knew, too, what I should have to do. Again I sought Erna, and told her that your life and Kurt's honour were both at stake; of course I took care to represent matters in such a way that the idea could not well occur to her of your having wished to sacrifice yourself directly for Kurt. She spurned with contumely the idea that Kurt had only pretended not to hear the Baron's insulting remarks; no need for me to tell her, she said, that Kurt must be instantly informed of it. I am convinced that she felt that her fate was about to be decided, that now once more she became fully and thoroughly conscious of her love for Kurt. The great, strong, energetic nature of the glorious girl shone forth in mighty radiance. I could have knelt at her feet and worshipped her! I may say that I forgot completely my own self, forgot that he for whom this passion was flaming heaven-high had been the object of my own mad love. I even concealed what I knew--that I had distinctly recognised the Baron, when I saw him at the card-table last night, as the man who also, at a card-table, had cheated my mother out of a hundred thousand francs--that the Baron was not a fit man for an officer and a gentleman to fight. I dreaded lest that objection should destroy what I saw coming. How we hurried all over the ground in search of Kurt; how we came upon his regiment when he had just ridden off; how a surgeon's assistant who had been sent back to fetch some forgotten bandages or instruments helped us to find his track; how we followed up that track at the utmost speed of which our horses were capable; how we reached the goal just in time to see Kurt fall, whilst his miserable opponent flung the pistol to the ground and fled when he beheld me--all this you know, or may easily picture for yourself. But I picture to myself how Erna will now be leading her love to her parental abode, to keep and to hold him there for her very own;--for what is more, what becomes more a woman's very own than the man whom she loves, if she has to tend him and wrestle with death for his possession;--and I picture to myself how now only she recognises with a shudder what a lordly treasure she had all but forfeited through exaggerated pride and obstinacy; and I think of, all the wealth of love and bliss which is in store for them both! And then I look at us both, at us who have opened for them the gates of their paradise driving away into darkness like two exiles; and I ask you, friend, have we really need to be ashamed of the part which we have played? Or, rather, are we not fully and fairly entitled to rejoice in our success and to be proud of it? Yes, friend, we must be glad, we must be proud. Where else shall we, who are sick unto death, gain the strength to get well again? For we must not, dare not die; but we must live and be happy, to prove to those two that they may be happy on our account. I, my friend, mean to live on; I will and shall recover. I shall appear at Court to-night, and be beautiful and witty if I can, or at least serene and in good-humour. And not to-day alone, but to-morrow too, and every day, and most so by Waldor's side, for he very surely does not marry the Princess Alexandra for the sake of getting a moody, melancholy wife. Some secret corner somewhere will surely be found where now and again one may weep in peace, and let the grievous wound bleed. And you, dear friend? What shall you do? How will you set about recovering? I should not have an hour's quiet if I had to think you could not. Give me your word that you will recover, give me your hand on it."
Bertram's answer did not come at once. He raised his eyes and saw the beacon-fees blazing on the mountain tops and far away in the plains. He heard the calls of the patrols, the neighing of many horses, the talk and laughter of the men round the bivouac-fires, the dull thud of marching columns. It was but a mimic warfare, but it spoke to him of a true and earnest fight in which he was called upon to take his place in the ranks as a good and true soldier, to do his duty as long as strength was granted him--it might be for years, or for a few days only. And he held out his hand to Alexandra, and said--
"Whether I shall recover, I know not. But I swear to you that I will try!"
* * * * *
"Then you insist upon joining in to-morrow's debate?" the doctor was saying.
"I flatter myself that it is necessary!" replied Bertram.
"As a political partisan I admit it; as your medical adviser I repeat, it is impossible."
"Come, my good friend, you said just now, it is undesirable; now, from that to impossible is rather a bold step. We had better stick to the first statement."
The doctor, who had taken up his hat and stick a few minutes before, laid both down again, pushed Bertram into the chair before his writing-table, sat down again facing him, and said--
"Judging from your momentary condition it is merely desirable that you should have at present absolute repose for at least a few days. But I very much fear that to-morrow's inevitable excitement will make you worse, and then the downright necessity for rest will arise, and that not only for a few days. Let me speak quite frankly, Bertram. I know that I shall not frighten you, although I should rather like to do so. You are causing me real anxiety. I greatly regret that I kept you last autumn from your projected Italian trip, and that I pushed and urged you into the fatigues of an election campaign and into the harassing anxieties of parliamentary life. I assumed that this energetic activity would contribute to your complete restoration to health, and I find that I made a grievous mistake. And yet I am not aware where exactly the mistake was made. You mastered your parliamentary duties with such perfect ease, you entered the arena so well prepared and armed from top to toe, you used your weapons with all the skill of a past master, and you were borne along by such an ample measure of success--and that of course has its great value. Well, according to all human understanding and experience, the splendid and relatively easy discharge of duties for which you are so eminently fitted, should contribute to your well-being, and yet the very opposite is occurring. In spite of all my cogitations I can find but one theory to account for it. In spite of the admirable equanimity which you always preserve, in spite of the undimmed serenity of your disposition and appearance, by which you charm your friends, whilst you frequently disarm your foes, there must be a hidden something in your soul that gnaws away at your vitals, a deep, dark under-current of grief and pain. Am I right? You know that I am not asking the question from idle curiosity."
"I know it," replied Bertram; "and therefore I answer: you are right and yet not right, or right only if you hold me responsible for the effect of a cause I was guiltless of."
"You answer in enigmas, my friend."
"Let me try a metaphor. Say, somebody is compelled to live in a house, in which the architect made some grave mistake at the laying of the foundations, or at some important period or other of its erection. The tenant is a quiet, steady man, who keeps the house in good order; then comes a storm, and the ill-constructed building is terribly shaken and strained. The steady-going tenant repairs the damage as best he can, and things go on fairly enough for a time, a long time, until there comes another and a worse storm, which makes the whole house topple together over his head."
The doctor's dark eyes had been dwelling searchingly and sympathisingly upon the speaker. Now he said--
"I think I understand your metaphor. Of course, it only meets a portion of the case. I happen to know the house in question extremely well. True there was one weak point in it from the beginning, in spite of its general excellent construction, but ..."
"But me no buts," interrupted Bertram eagerly. "Given the one weak point, and all the rest naturally follows. I surely need not point out to such a faithful disciple of Spinoza's, that thought and expansion are but attributes of one and the same substance, that there is no physiological case that does not, rightly viewed, turn to a psychological one; that so excitable a heart as mine must needs be impressed by things more than other hearts whose bands do not snap, happen what may, and notwithstanding all the storms of Fate. Or are you not sure that, if you had had to examine the hearts of Werther or of Eduard in the 'Elective Affinities,' you would have found things undreamed of by æesthetic philosophers? I belong to the same race. I neither glory in this, nor do I blush for it; I simply state a fact, a fact which embodies my fate, before whose power I bow, or rather whose power bows me down in spite of my resistance. For, however much I may by disposition belong to the last century, yet I am also a citizen of our own time; nor can I be deaf to its bidding. I know full well that modern man can no longer live and die exclusively for his private joys and sorrows; I know full well that I have a fatherland whose fame, honour, and greatness I am bound to hold sacred, and to which I am indebted as long as a breath stirs within me. I know it, and I believe that I have proved it according to my strength, both formerly and again now, when ..."
He covered forehead and eyes with his hands, and so sat for a while in deep emotion, which his medical friend respected by keeping perfectly silent. Then, looking up again, Bertram went on in a hushed voice--
"My friend, that last storm was very, very strong. It shook the feeble building to its very foundation. What is now causing your anxiety is indeed but a consequence of that awful tempest. The terribly entrancing details no one as yet knows except one woman, whom an almost identical fate made my confidante, and who will keep my secret absolutely. So would you, I know. You have been before this my counsellor and my father-confessor. And so you will be another time, perhaps, if you desire it and deem it necessary.--To-day only this one remark more, for your own satisfaction; for I read in your grave countenance the same momentous question which my confidante put to me: Whether I am willing to recover? I answered to the best of my knowledge and belief: Yes! I consider it my duty to be willing. It is a duty simply towards my electors, who have not honoured me with their votes that I may lie me down and die of an unhappy and unrequited attachment. If the latter does happen--I mean my dying--you will bear witness that it was done against my will, solely in consequence of that mistake in the original construction which the architect was guilty of. But, in order that it may not happen, or may at least not happen so soon, you, my friend, must allow me to do the very thing which you have forbidden. The dream I dreamed was infinitely beautiful, and, to speak quite frankly, real life seems barren and dreary in comparison with it. The contrast is too great, and I can only efface it somewhat by mixing with the insipid food a strong spice of excitement, such as our parliamentary kitchen is just now supplying in the best quality, and of which our head-cook is sure to give us an extra dose to-morrow. And, therefore, I must be in my place at the table tomorrow and make my dinner-speech.Quod erat demonstrandum."
He held out his hand with a smile. His friend smiled too. It was a very melancholy smile, and vanished again forthwith.
"What a pity," he said, "that the cleverest patients are the most intractable. But I have vowed I will never have a clever one again, after you."
"In truth," replied Bertram, "I am giving you far too much trouble. In your great kindness and friendship you come to me almost in the middle of the night, when you ought to be resting from your day's heavy toil; you come of your own accord, simply impelled by a faithful care for my well-being; and, finally, you have to return with ingratitude and disobedience for your reward. Well, well--let us hope for better things, and let me have the pleasure of seeing you again to-morrow."
Konski came in with a candle to show the doctor the way down, for the lights in the house had long since been extinguished. The gentlemen were once more shaking hands, and the physician slipped his on to Bertram's wrist Then he shook his head.
"Konski," he said, turning to the servant, "if your master has a fancy one of these days to drink a glass of champagne, you may give him one, as an exception; but only one."
"Now remember that, Konski!" said Bertram.
"It is not likely that it will happen," grumbled Konski.
"Konski will leave me to-morrow," explained Bertram.
"Will, is it? No, I won't, but ..."
"All right!" said his master, "we must not bother the doctor with our private affairs. Good-bye, my friend! With your leave I will dine with you to-morrow."
The physician left; Bertram immediately again sat down at the writing-table, and resumed the work which this late visit had interrupted. It was a disputed election case, and he would have to report upon it to the House. There had been some irregularities, and it was in the interest of his own party that the election should be declared null and void; he had been examining the somewhat complicated data with all the greater conscientiousness and care. But now he lost the thread, and was turning over the voluminous page of the evidence, when, lo! a daintily-folded sheet of paper--a letter--fell out.
"Good heavens! how came this here?"
He seized upon it with eagerness, as a wandering beggar might seize upon a gold coin which he saw glittering among the dust on the road. The hot blood surged to the temples from the sick and sore heart; the hand that held the slight paper trembled violently.
"Now he would not be grumbling at my slow pulse!"
Yesterday morning he had received this letter, but had not succeeded in composing himself sufficiently to read more than a few lines. He thought that, perhaps, on his return from theReichstaghe might have been in a more settled frame of mind. Then he had not been able to find again the letter which had been laid aside, although he had searched for hours, first alone, then with Konski.
And now--after all those documents were pushed aside--he was again, as yesterday, staring hard at the page, and again, as yesterday, the different lines ran into each other; but he shook his head angrily, drew his hand over his eyes, and then read:--
"Capri,April24.
"Dearest Uncle Bertram,--If to-day for the first time, in our travels I write to you, take this as a gentle punishment for not having come to our wedding. Take it--no, I must not tell you a falsehood, not even in jest. We--I mean Kurt and myself--regretted your absence greatly, but were angry only with those wretched politics which would not release you just at a time, when, as Kurt explained to me, such important matters were at stake. Take, then, I pray you, my prolonged silence as a proof of the confusion under which I labour, amidst the thousand new impressions of travel, and through the hurry with which we have travelled. Kurt has just four weeks' leave, so we had indeed to make, haste; and, therefore, we steamed direct from Genoa to Naples, calling at Leghorn only, and yesterday evening we arrived there only to leave this morning, and to sail to Capri, favoured by a livelytramontane.
"I am writing this my first letter upon the balcony of a house in Capri.
"Dearest Uncle Bertram, do you know such a house which 'stands amidst orange groves, with sublimest view of the blue infinity of the ocean, a fair, white hostelry embowered in roses'?
"The words are your own, and do you know when you spoke them to me? On that first night when I met you in the forest on the Hirschstein hill. You have probably forgotten it, but I remember it well, and all through the journey your words were ever before me; and of all the glories of Italy, I wanted first to see the house which had, since then, remained in your fond remembrance, where you 'ever since longed to be back again,' and the very name of which was always to you 'a sound of comfort, of promise:Qui si sana!'
"And now we are here--we who need no comfort, we to whom all promise of earthly bliss has been fulfilled, and so drink in the blue air of heaven, and inhale the sweet fragrance of roses and oranges.
"And you, dearest Uncle Bertram, you dwell--your heart full of longing for fair Quisisana--yonder in the dull grey North, buried beneath parliamentary papers, wearied and worn--and, uncle, that thought is the one grey cloud, the only one in the wide blue vault of heaven, like the one floating yonder above the rugged rocky front of Monte Solaro, of which our young landlord, Federigo, foretells that it will bring us aburrasca. I gave him a good scolding, and told him I wanted sunshine, plenty of sunshine, and nothing but sunshine, but I thought of you only, and not of us. And surely for you too, who are so noble and good, the sun does shine, and you walk in its light, in the sunny light of great fame! Yes, Uncle Bertram, however modest you are, you must yet be glad and proud to learn how your greatness is recognised and admired. I am not speaking of your friends, for that is a matter of course, but of your political opponents. In Genoa, at the table d'hôte, we made the acquaintance of some Count from Pomerania--I have forgotten his name--with whom Kurt talked politics a good deal. In the evening the Count brought us a Berlin paper, which contained your last great speech. 'Look here,' he said, 'there is a man from whom all can learn, one of whom each party should be proud.' He had no idea why Kurt looked so pleased and proud, nor why I burst into tears when I read your splendid speech.
"Only fancy, Uncle Bertram! Signor Federigo has just brought me, at my request, an old visitors' book--the one for the year 1859, the year in which I knew you had been here. Many leaves had been torn out, but the one upon which you had written your name was preserved, and the date turns out to be that of the very day on which I, was born! Is not this passing strange? Signor Federigo has, of course, had to present the precious leaf to me, which he did with a most graceful bow--the paper in one hand and the other laid upon his heart--and we have resolved to celebrate here the day of your arrival in Capri and of my arrival in the world. Why, indeed, should we travel on so swiftly? There can be no fairer scene than this anywhere. Sunshine, the fragrance of roses, the bright blue sky; the everlasting sea, my Kurt, and the recollection of you, whose dear image every rock, every palm tree, everything I see brings as if by magic before my inner eye! No, no; we surely will stay here until my birthday.
"Signor Federigo is calling from the verandah that 'Madama' has only five minutes more for writing if the letter is to leave to-day. Of course it is to leave to-day; but I have the terrible conviction of having written nothing so far. It cannot now be helped. So next time I will tell you everything that I could not do to-day: about my parents, who are writing letters full of happiness--papa, in particular, who seems delighted that he has given up his factories--which surprised me greatly; about Agatha's engagement to Herr von Busche, which did not surprise me, for I saw it coming during the merrymakings previous to my wedding; about ...
"Signor Federigo, you are intolerable!
"Dear Kurt, I cannot let you have the remaining space of two lines, for I absolutely require it myself to send my beloved Uncle Bertram a most hearty greeting and kiss from Quisisana."
Bertram laid the paper very gently down upon the table; he was stooping to imprint a kiss upon it, but before his lips touched the letter, he drew himself up abruptly.
"No; she knows not what she does, but you know it, and she is your neighbour's wife! Shame upon you! Pluck it out, the eye that offends you, and the base, criminal heart as well!"
He seized the parliamentary papers, then paused.
"Until her birthday! Well, she will assuredly expect a few kind words, and has a right to expect them; nay, more, she would interpret my silence wrongly. I wonder whether there is yet time? When is her birthday? She has not mentioned the date; I think somewhere in the beginning of May. Now, on what day did I arrive there?"
He had not long to seek in the old diaries, which he kept methodically, and preserved with care. There was the entry: "May 1.--Arrived in Capri, and put up at a house which I found it hard to climb up to; the name had an irresistible attraction for me: Quisisana--Sit omen in nomine!"
The first of May! Why, to-morrow is the first. It is too late for a letter, of course, but a telegram will do, if despatched at once.
"Konski!"
The faithful servant entered.
"My good Konski, I am very sorry, but you must be off to the telegraph-office at once. To-morrow is the birthday of Miss Erna--well, well, you know! Of course she must hear from me."
He had written a few lines in German, then it occurred, to him that it might be, safer to write them in Italian. So he re-wrote them.
Kanski, who had meanwhile got himself ready, entered the room.
"You will scarcely be back before midnight. And, Konski, we must begin the morrow cheerfully. So put the key of the cellar into your pocket, and bring a bottle of champagne with you when you return. No remonstrance, otherwise I shall put into your character tomorrow, 'Dismissed for disobedience'!"
* * * * *
It was nearly three o'clock when the doctor came hurrying in. Konski would not leave the master, and had despatched the porter. Konski took the doctor's hat and stick, and pointed in silence--he could not speak--to the big couch at the bottom of the room. The doctor took the lamp from the writing-table, and held it to the pale face. Konski followed and relieved him of the lamp, whilst the doctor made his investigation.
"He must have been dead an hour and more," he said, looking up. "Why did you not send sooner? Put the lamp back upon the writing-table, and tell me all you know."
He had sat down in Bertram's chair. "Take a chair," he went on, "and tell me all."
Then Konski told.
He had come back at a quarter-past twelve from the telegraph-office, and had found his master writing away busily, when he brought in the bottle of champagne which he had been ordered to fetch from the cellar. His master had scolded him for bringing only one glass, and made him fetch another, for they must both drink and clink glasses to the health of the young lady.
"Then," the servant went on, "I sat opposite to him, for the first time in my life, in that corner, at the small round table, he in the one chair and I in the other. And he chatted with me, not like a master with his servant, no; exactly--well, I cannot describe it, sir; but you know how good and kind he always was. I never heard an unkind word from him all these ten years I have been with him, and if ever he was a bit angry, he always made up for it afterwards. And, to-morrow I was to leave for Rinstedt to get married, and he had given us our furniture and all, and fitted up a new shop for us into the bargain. Then we talked a good deal of Rinstedt, and of the manœ vres last year, and of Miss Erna that was, and of Italy, where, as you know, sir, I was with the master two years ago. Well, I mean, it was not I who was talking so much, but master, and I could have gone on listening, listening for ever, when he was telling of Capri, where we did not get that time, and where Mrs. Ringberg is staying now--Miss Erna as was. And then his eyes shone and sparkled splendidly, but he hardly drank any wine, just enough to pledge the young lady's health with, and the rest is in his glass still. But he made me fill up mine again and again, for I could stand it, said he, and he could not, he said, and he would presently finish his work; and there are the papers on the table in front of you, sir, that he had been looking at. And then, of a sudden like, he says, 'Konski, I am getting tired; I shall lie down for half an hour. You just finish the bottle meanwhile, and call me at half-past one sharp.' It was just striking one o'clock then.
"So he lay down, and I put the rug over him, sir, and, oh--I'll never forgive myself for it; but all day long I had been running backward and forward about these things of mine, and then at last the long walk at night to the telegraph-office, and perhaps the champagne had gone to my head a bit, since I am sure, that I had not sat for five minutes before I was asleep. And when I woke it was not half-past one, but half-past two, so that I was regular frightened like. But as the master was a-sleeping calm and steady, I thought, even as I was standing quite close to him, that it was a pity to wake him, even though he was lying on his left side again, which formerly he could not bear at all, and which you, sir, had forbidden so particularly. I mind of our first evening in Rinstedt, sir, but then he did wake up again ... and now he is dead."
Konski was crying bitterly. The doctor held out his hand to him.
"It is no fault of yours. Neither you nor I could have kept him alive. Now, leave me here alone; you may wait in the next room."
After Konski had left, the doctor went to the little round table on which the empty bottle and two glasses were standing, one empty, one half-full. Above the sofa, to the right and left, were gas-brackets, with one lighted jet on either side. He held the half-full glass to the light and shook it. Bright beads were rising from the clear, liquid.
He put the glass down again, and murmured--
"He never spoke an untruth! It was in any case solely a question of time. He drank his death-draught six months ago. The only wonder is that he bore it so long."
Erna's letter was lying upon the table. The doctor read it almost mechanically.
"Pretty much as I thought!" he muttered. "Such a clever and, as it would seem, large-hearted girl, and yet--but they are all alike!"
A scrap of paper, with something in Bertram's hand writing caught his eye. It was the German telegram.
"All hail--happiness and blessing--to-day and for ever--for my darling child in Quisisana."
The doctor rose, and was now pacing up and down the chamber with folded arms. From the adjoining room, the door of which was left ajar, he heard suppressed sobs. The faithful servant's unconcealed grief had well-nigh unchained the bitter sorrow in his own heart. He brushed the tears from his eyes, stepped to the couch, and drew the covering back.
He stood there long, lost in marvelling contemplation.
The beautiful lofty brow, overshadowed by the soft and abundant hair, the dark colour of which was not broken by one silvery thread; the daintily curved lips, that seemed about to open for some witty saying, lips the pallor of which was put to shame by the whiteness of the teeth, which were just visible; the broad-arched chest--what wonder that the man of fifty had felt in life like a youth--like the youth for whom Death had taken him.
From those pure and pallid features Death had wiped away even the faintest remembrance of the woe which had broken the noble heart.
Now it was still--still for evermore!
He laid his hand upon that silent heart.
"Qui si sana!" he said, very gently.
Footnote 1:
"Und immer ist der Mann ein junger Mann,Der einem jungen Weibe wohlgefällt."
"Und immer ist der Mann ein junger Mann,Der einem jungen Weibe wohlgefällt."