'"
"Yours?" asked Wolf.
"Nonsense, that's no mathematician's poetry. Old Storm."
"The feeling is true, though it is somewhat insipidly expressed.
Memories are indeed wealth, though it arouses melancholy to rummage
amid the treasure."
"Tell me, Wolf--what has become of Helene?"
"I hope she is faring very well."
"You do not know?"
"I will tell you what I know about her. I was going to Spain at that
time, as you are aware, about the copper-mining business. But I had to
give it up because I would not leave Helene. Our child died when it
was six weeks old. What would I give if I had the boy now! Then I
considered his death the solving of a problem. I told Helene that I
must now go to Huelva. She wanted to accompany me. Of course that
would not do. There were passionate scenes, but I released myself.
She promised to return to her father in Douai, and she kept her word,
because for a time her letters came from there."
"So you wrote to each other?"
"Yes, at first. After some time she suddenly appeared in Paris again.
She wrote in apology that she could no longer endure that dull Douai
with her morose old father.
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