Minna was soon to follow. With regard to myself—I only thought of getting away. My uncle had no objection to my immediate arrival, and a week after old Hertz's death I was ready to start.
Mrs. Hertz presented me at parting with the little original manuscript of Heine's poems. How truly and bitterly it now suited my case! And still it was so precious to me. I have kept it as a treasure, the unattainableness of which had brought English collectors to despair.
········
Year after year passed in almost constant, strenuous work. It followed naturally that at first I hardly saw anybody except the workmen at the factory and the employees, and later on it became a custom that pleased me. I got on well enough with my uncle, though I never became very intimate with him. He was pleased with my capacity for work. After two or three years he feared that I should exaggerate it, be "a business bachelor," as he called it. He tried to persuade me to take some part in social life: a man in such a position ought to form ties.
Little by little I gave in, and gradually changed my habits.
There was neither talk of cavalcades in Hyde Park nor holidays spent in country-seats, but I made the acquaintance of some nice middle-class families, almost all well-to-do factory owners. The young ladies were not heiresses of millions, but no less beautiful for that (those who were beautiful), and none of them would go into matrimony empty-handed. I had, however, another ideal in my heart, and my coolness often irritated my comrades, who considered it humbug.
