“What a great pity it is that you don’t dance.”

“Fraulein Ellrich has just said the same thing,” answered Wilhelm, smiling a little.

“And she is quite right.  You are like a thirsty man beside a delicious spring, and are not able to drink.  It is pure Tantalus.”

“Your analogy does not hold good.  What I am looking at does not give me the sensation of a delicious spring, and does not make me thirsty.”

Paul looked at him surprised.  “Still you are a man of flesh and blood, and the sight of all these charming girls must give you pleasure.”

“You know I am engaged to only one girl here, and her I have seen under more favorable circumstances.”

“Well!  She probably does not always wear such beautiful dresses, and if she were not excited by the music and dancing her eyes might possibly not sparkle so much; that is what I mean about its being a pity that you don’t dance.”

“That is not it.  I have seen this beautiful girl on other occasions engaged in the highest intellectual occupation, and I am sorry to see her sink to this sort of thing.”

“Now the difference is defined.  I was silly enough till now to think that even in a drawing-room one saw something of the highest form of humanity, and that aristocratic society is the flower of civilization.”

“Those are opinions which are spread by clever men of the world to excuse their shallow behavior in their own eyes and in the eyes of others.  What these people come here for is to satisfy their lower inclinations—­you must see this for yourself; if you do not allow yourself to be influenced by these pretentious, ceremonious forms, at least try to discover the reality that lies beneath them.  What you call the height of civilization seems to me the lowest.  Do you understand?  I feel that cultured people in their drawing-room society are in the condition of savages, and even allied to animals.”

“Bravo, Wilhelm! go on; this is most edifying.”

“You may jeer, but in spite of you I believe that this is so.  Try to discover what is going on in the brains of all these people at this moment.  Their highest power of activity of mind, which makes men of them, slumbers.  They do not think, they only feel.  The old gentlemen enjoy themselves with cigars, ices, the prospect of supper; the young men seek pleasant sensations in dancing with beautiful girls.  The ladies seek in their partners and admirers to kindle feelings and desires—­vanity, self-seeking, pleasure of the senses, gratification of the palate, in short, all the grosser tastes.  All that is not only like savages, but like animals.  They are merry and contented at the prospect of a savory meal, and they are fond of playing tricks on each other—­both sexes chaff and tease constantly.  I believe that the development of our larger brain is the intellectual work of man during hundreds and thousands of years, and it would gratify me to see it raised to a still greater state of activity.”