“Somehow it did not appear at all remarkable,” she afterward declared.  “We seemed to be perfectly fitted to each other.”

Nevertheless, nine months passed before they met again at a soiree.  At this time Lassaller gazing upon her, said: 

“What would you do if I were sentenced to death?”

“I should wait until your head was severed,” was her answer, “in order that you might look upon your beloved to the last, and then —­I should take poison!”

Her answer delighted him, but he said that there was no danger.  He was greeted on every hand with great consideration; and it seemed not unlikely that, in recognition of his influence with the people, he might rise to some high position.  The King of Prussia sympathized with him.  Heine called him the Messiah of the nineteenth century.  When he passed from city to city, the whole population turned out to do him honor.  Houses were wreathed; flowers were thrown in masses upon him, while the streets were spanned with triumphal arches.

Worn out with the work and excitement attending the birth of the Deutscher Arbeiterverein, or workmen’s union, which he founded in 1863, Lassalle fled for a time to Switzerland for rest.  Helene heard of his whereabouts, and hurried to him, with several friends.  They met again on July 25,1864, and discussed long and intensely the possibilities of their marriage and the opposition of her parents, who would never permit her to marry a man who was at once a Socialist and a Jew.

Then comes a pitiful story of the strife between Lassalle and the Donniges family.  Helene’s father and mother indulged in vulgar words; they spoke of Lassalle with contempt; they recalled all the scandals that had been current ten years before, and forbade Helene ever to mention the man’s name again.

The next scene in the drama took place in Geneva, where the family of Herr von Donniges had arrived, and where Helene’s sister had been betrothed to Count von Keyserling—­a match which filled her mother with intense joy.  Her momentary friendliness tempted Helene to speak of her unalterable love for Lassalle.  Scarcely had the words been spoken when her father and mother burst into abuse and denounced Lassalle as well as herself.

She sent word of this to Lassalle, who was in a hotel near by.  Scarcely had he received her letter, when Helene herself appeared upon the scene, and with all the intensity of which she was possessed, she begged him to take her wherever he chose.  She would go with him to France, to Italy—­to the ends of the earth!

What a situation, and yet how simple a one for a man of spirit!  It is strange to have to record that to Lassalle it seemed most difficult.  He felt that he or she, or both of them, had been compromised.  Had she a lady with her?  Did she know any one in the neighborhood?

What an extraordinary answer!  If she were compromised, all the more ought he to have taken her in his arms and married her at once, instead of quibbling and showing himself a prig.