"Misfortune? Does she make you sigh in vain? If so you should leave her,
and thus regain your happiness."

"How can I sigh? I am not in love with her. She is in love with me, and
tries to make me her slave."

"How do you mean?"

"She wants me to marry her, and I promised to do so, partly from
weakness, and partly from pity; and now she is in a hurry."

"I daresay; all these elderly girls are in a hurry."

"Every evening she treats me to tears, supplications, and despair. She
summons me to keep my promise, and accuses me of deceiving her, so you
may imagine that my situation is an unhappy one."

"Have you any obligations towards her?"

"None whatever. She has violated me, so to speak, for all the advances
came from her. She has only what her sister gives her from day to day,
and if she got married she would not get that."

"Have you got her with child?"

"I have taken good care not to do so, and that's what has irritated her;
she calls all my little stratagems detestable treason."

"Nevertheless, you have made up your mind to marry her sooner or later?"