"Helene has
become, in your remembrance, the embodiment of your youth, and the
longing with which you think of her concerns your twenty-four years at
least as much as she herself."
"It may be so. The fact is that I see Helene in a golden light of
youth and careless happiness, and cannot think of her without tears."
"Do you know, friend Wolf, that you perhaps did wrong to leave her?"
"There are hours when I believe it. When we have found a creature whom
we love, and who loves us in return, we ought on no account to give her
up. We never know whether it will be possible to replace. And, after
all, love is the only thing which makes life worth living."
"What would you have, Sigmund? That is the wisdom of mature years. At
four and twenty we have not yet reached that knowledge. At that time I
perceived only that I had picked Helene up in the Luxembourg gardens,
that is, as it were, in the streets. I knew that I was not her first
love--"
"But her only one," interposed Sigmund.
"So she said, yes. But I had the feeling that I owed her nothing.
Love for love.
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