“It cannot be so very bad, however,” said Charlotte, smiling.  “We see people who have gone off the boards of the theatre, ready enough to undertake a part upon them again.”

“There is nothing to say against that,” said the Count.  “In a new character a man may readily venture on a second trial; and when we know the world we see clearly that it is only this positive, eternal duration of marriage in a world where everything is in motion, which has anything unbecoming about it.  A certain friend of mine, whose humor displays itself principally in suggestions for new laws, maintained that every marriage should be concluded only for five years.  Five, he said, was a sacred number—­pretty and uneven.  Such a period would be long enough for people to learn each other’s character, bring a child or two into the world, quarrel, separate, and what is best, get reconciled again.  He would often exclaim, ’How happily the first part of the time would pass away!’ Two or three years, at least, would be perfect bliss.  On one side or the other there would not fail to be a wish to have the relation continue longer, and the amiability would increase the nearer they got to the parting time.  The indifferent, even the dissatisfied party, would be softened and gained over by such behavior; they would forget, as in pleasant company the hours pass always unobserved, how the time went by, and they would be delightfully surprised when, after the term had run out, they first observed that they had unknowingly prolonged it.”

Charming and pleasant as all this sounded, and deep (Charlotte felt it to her soul) as was the moral significance which lay below it, expressions of this kind, on Ottilie’s account, were most distasteful to her.  She knew very well that nothing was more dangerous than the licentious conversation which treats culpable or semi-culpable actions as if they were common, ordinary, and even laudable, and of such undesirable kind assuredly were all which touched on the sacredness of marriage.  She endeavored, therefore, in her skilful way, to give the conversation another turn, and, when she found that she could not, it vexed her that Ottilie had managed everything so well that there was no occasion for her to leave the table.  In her quiet observant way a nod or a look was enough for her to signify to the head servant whatever was to be done, and everything went off perfectly, although there were a couple of strange men in livery in the way who were rather a trouble than a convenience.  And so the Count, without feeling Charlotte’s hints, went on giving his opinions on the same subject.  Generally, he was little enough apt to be tedious in conversation; but this was a thing which weighed so heavily on his heart, and the difficulties which he found in getting separated from his wife were so great that it had made him bitter against everything which concerned the marriage bond—­that very bond which, notwithstanding, he was so anxiously desiring between himself and the Baroness.