He can, however, hasten the
cure, if he can bring the patient to his own conviction."
He was silent, and seemed sunk in thought. Then he began again
suddenly: "I will read you a story about this; nothing is more
instructive than a clinical picture."
Bhani sprang to her feet and hastened toward him, but he put her
aside with a word, and going into his study he appeared again
bearing a folio bound in leather and with the corners fastened with
copper.
"This is my diary," he said. "I have had the weakness to keep this
since I was sixteen. There are three volumes already, and I began
the fourth when I returned to Germany. Listen now, and don't put
yourself under any constraint. I will laugh with you."
He opened the folio, and after a short search began to read. It was
the romance of his early life, written in the form of a diary,
simply told at some length. Quite an ordinary story of an
acquaintanceship made with a pretty girl, the daughter of a
bookseller, who sat next to him in a theater. Meetings out of doors,
then the introduction to her parents' house, and then the betrothal.
The Revolution of 1848 broke out, and the many demands on the young
doctor turned his thoughts away for the time from plans of marriage.
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