In September the Kreuzzeitung announced his betrothal to Fraulein Ellrich, which was followed in the winter by their brilliant wedding.
The breaking of Wilhelm's relations with Loulou left a great blank in his life.

Up till now he had had in pleasant, hopeful hours, an object to which all the paths in his life led him, to which his thoughts were drawn as a ship steers for a distant yet secure harbor; now the object was gone, and when he looked forward to his future it seemed like the gray surface of the sea at dusk, formless, limitless, without meaning or interest.

Even the painful doubt he had been in, his hesitation between the resolve to persevere in the engagement, or to renounce it, the fight between his intelligence and his inclinations, had become familiar to him, and had filled his thoughts by day and his dreams by night.

These must now all be renounced.

If for the last half-year his love had been only a quiet happiness, or a hardly-defined desire, it was at any rate an occupation for his mind, and he missed the employment very greatly.
He became quieter than ever; his face lost its youthful, healthy color, and he appeared like the typical lover famed in classic story.