If you had loved, she would have paid you back. What
does she ask? A little ardour!'
'It is hard to love for two,' replied the Prince.
'Hard? Why, there's the touchstone! O, I know my poets!' cried the
Doctor. 'We are but dust and fire, too and to endure life's
scorching; and love, like the shadow of a great rock, should lend
shelter and refreshment, not to the lover only, but to his mistress
and to the children that reward them; and their very friends should
seek repose in the fringes of that peace. Love is not love that
cannot build a home. And you call it love to grudge and quarrel and
pick faults? You call it love to thwart her to her face, and bandy
insults? Love!'
'Gotthold, you are unjust. I was then fighting for my country,'
said the Prince.
'Ay, and there's the worst of all,' returned the Doctor. 'You could
not even see that you were wrong; that being where they were,
retreat was ruin.'
Why, you supported me!' cried Otto.
'I did. I was a fool like you,' replied Gotthold. 'But now my eyes
are open. If you go on as you have started, disgrace this fellow
Gondremark, and publish the scandal of your divided house, there
will befall a most abominable thing in Grunewald. A revolution,
friend - a revolution.'
'You speak strangely for a red,' said Otto.
'A red republican, but not a revolutionary,' returned the Doctor.
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