Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Part II - III
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THE CONFESSION OF A FOOL 171
been so, for the suggestion had not been made easily and
was most unHke her. I tried to make myself believe it,
hope it.
If she had merely asked me for the money which she
had invested in the paper, the money which had been
lost through her fault—that would have been female
mathematics. Or, if she had insisted on an immediate
marriage ! But she had no wish to be married, I was
sure of that. It was a question of paying for the love,
the kisses she had given me. It was payment she de-
manded. . . . Supposing I sent her in my bill : for my
work according to time and quality, for the waste of
brain power, of nerve force, for my heart’s blood, my
name, my honour, my sufferings ; the bill for my career,
ruined, perhaps, for ever.
But no, it was her privilege to send in the first bill ;
I took no exception to that.
I spent my evening at a restaurant, wandered through
the streets and pondered the problem of degradation.
Why is it so painful to watch a person sink ? It must
be because there is something unnatural in it, for nature
demands personal progress, evolution, and every backward
step means the disintegration of force.
The same argument applies to the life of the community
where everybody strives to reach the material or spiritual
summits. Thence comes the tragic feeling which seizes
us in the contemplation of failure, tragic as autumn,
sickness and death. This woman, who had not yet
reached her thirtieth year, had been young, beautiful,
frank, honest, amiable, strong and well-bred ; in two short
years she had been so degraded, had fallen so low.
For a moment I tried to blame myself ; the thought that
the fault was mine would have been a comfort to me, for
it would have made her shame seem less. But try as I
would, I did not succeed, for had I not taught her the cult
of the beautiful ? the love of high ideals ? the longing to do
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