“But tell me about yourself personally,” said Julius. “I see you with that pretty girl; you apparently live near her and serve her; can it be that you do not desire to be her husband?”
“I have not thought about it,” said Pamphilius. “She is the daughter of a Christian widow. I serve them just as others do. You ask me if I love her in a way to unite my life with hers. This question is hard for me. But I will answer frankly. This idea has occurred to me; but there is a young man who loves her, and therefore I do not dare as yet to think about it. This young man is a Christian, and loves us both, and I cannot take a step which would hurt him. I live, not thinking about this. I try to do one thing: to fulfil the law of love to men—this is the only thing I demand; I shall marry when I see that it is proper.”
“But it cannot be a matter of indifference to the mother whether she has a good industrious son-in-law or not. She would want you, and not anyone else.”
“No, it is a matter of indifference to her, because she knows that, besides me, all of us are ready to serve her as well as everyone else, and I should serve her neither more nor less whether I were her son-in-law or not. If my marriage to her daughter results, I shall enter upon it with joy, and so I should rejoice even if she married someone else.”
“That is impossible!” exclaimed Julius. “This is a horrible thing of you—that you deceive yourselves! And thus you deceive others. That stranger told me correctly about you. When I listen to you I cannot help yielding to the beauty of the life which you describe for me; but as I think it over, I see that it is all deception, leading to savagery, brutality, of life approaching that of brutes.”