can one think of anything more sad? It is enough to make the heart
cease beating! But suppose, too, that to-morrow she finds out that
she has been deceived: she has once written, 'I was mistaken,' and
cannot, as a true woman, write it again, unless she first heard
from me, and learned how I longed--and so I am cut off from her,
as if I lived in the moon. More, more! for I can meet her upon the
street and touch her arm without surmising it. It is
insupportable! Our time has mail, steamboats, railroads,
telegraphs: to me these do not exist; for of what use are they
altogether, when one knows not where to search."

A thought came suddenly, like a meteor in the dark: advertise.
What family in Copenhagen did not the Address Paper reach? He
would put in an advertisement,--but how? "Fritz Bagger is not
married."--No: that was too plain.--"F. B. is not married."--No:
that was not plain enough. As he could find no successful use for
his own name, it flashed into his mind to use hers,--geb--; and
although it was painful to him to publish this, to him, almost
sacred syllable for profane eyes to gaze upon, yet it comforted
him, that only one, she herself, would understand it. Yet he
hesitated. But one cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs;
and although the heart's finest fibres ache at the thought of
sending a message to a fairy through the Address Paper, yet one
yields to this rather than lose the fairy.

At last, after numerous efforts he stopped at this: "--geb--! It
is a mistake: he waits only for--geb--." It appeared to him to
contain the approach to a happy result, and tired out by emotion
he fell asleep on his sofa.