Wilhelm made no reply, but he was surprised himself to feel how deeply the information affected him, so that he could not breathe freely all the evening, and although it was late before he got to bed, he could not sleep for hours, thinking of the girl he had once loved, who was now rushing blindly down the path of dishonor.  Why should the thought pain him so much?  Do heart wounds heal so slowly and imperfectly that a rough touch can make the scar burn and throb after long years?  Or was it regret at the besmirching of a picture which till now had shone so purely and been so sweetly framed in his memory?  He did not know, but for days it depressed him to the verge of melancholy.

In return for the hospitality he had received New Year’s Eve was spent at Herr von Swerte’s.  The whole Haber family, with Frau Brohl and Frau Marker—­the white grandmamma and the brown grandmamma, as Willy called them, to distinguish them from one another—­drove over in the afternoon to Ronneburg by way of Harburg, but Wilhelm could not be prevailed upon to accompany them.  Paul took him severely to task; Malvine represented to him, with an eloquence unusual to her, the horrors of a lonely New-Year’s Eve; Frau Brohl pointed out the advantages of celebrating the festive occasion in a company composed entirely of rich people; and even Willy entreated, “Do come, Onkelchen, you can take care of me on the road.”  All their persuasion proving fruitless, they finally left him to his fate, and he remained behind alone.

Night found him at the writing-table in Paul’s study, his head in his hand, lost in thought.  At last he shook himself out of his deep brooding and wrote the following letter to Schrotter: 

“My Revered Friend, I will not now break the habit of eight years, but will spend my New Years’ Eve with you, the person who stands nearest to me in all the world.  I am alone in this grand villa, the servants seem to be enjoying themselves downstairs over their roast goose and punch, Paul has taken his family and gone into the country to the castle of a neighboring estate owner by whom he is evidently very much impressed, and I can chat with you undisturbed.

“I wish you could live for a time in close contact with Paul, as I am doing, you would be surprised and pleased.  His development has been wonderfully logical, and he now affords the spectacle, so intensely interesting to the observant eye, of a person whose every capacity, under the influence of the most favorable combination of circumstances imaginable, has attained to the utmost limit of growth which is possible to it.  Paul has become the ideal type of our North German landed proprietor.  He is ultra conservative, and considers the Socialist Act too mild.  He loathes parliamentarianism, but would wish that the Landrath had not the power to appoint even a police constable without the consent of the estate owners of the district, and raves about local police prerogative.