After much struggling and loss in love and in the world of man, the protagonist throws in his lot with a woman who is already married. Together they go into another country, she perforce leaving her children behind. The conflict of love and hate goes on between the man and the woman, and between these two and the world around them, till it reaches some sort of conclusion, they transcend into some condition of blessedness Swarms of mankind in the world, and we were!

IRSCHENHAUSEN You shadow and flame,

with a loveliness I loathe; you did not stretch forward to caress her That you are with me in the end.