The life of show and
appearance has too great a hold on her, and I shall never be able to
give her what she wants, and what seems necessary to her happiness."
Paul's opinion, which he gave on the way home, struck him
sorrowfully. One of the richest "parties" in Berlin! Would not
people say he was marrying her for her money? What people said was
really nothing to him, and he considered himself free to act as his
innermost judgment counseled. But might not Loulou herself believe
that her father's money added something to her attractions? He
recognized that this feeling indicated a weakness, a want of self-
reliance, but the idea that she might be capable of such a thought
made him angry. Her money did not attract him! On the contrary, it
was an obstacle between them. Why was she not a Moscow gypsy girl?
Just as young, and pretty, and charming, but uncultivated, and
therefore ready for cultivation and capable of it; poor as a beggar,
and therefore free from pretensions, but without knowledge of the
world, and therefore without desire for it. How happy they might
both be then! Such thoughts ran riot in his brain, and he fell
asleep only when the late winter sun shone through the curtains on
his tired white face.
The winter went quickly by under amusements of all kinds.
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