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army I prepared to meet those attacks of morbid remorse
which frequently accompany physical weakness.
Looming large, filling my mind completely, were the
two ugly blots which, under guise of a confession, I had
revealed to my wife on the previous day; the two dark
blots which had spoiled my life for so many years.
I resolved to re-examine them at once, to dissect those
two “facts” which up to now I had allowed to pass
unchallenged, for I had a vague presentiment that they
were unsound.
“Let me see,” I said to myself, “what have I done
that I should look upon myself as a selfish coward, who
has sacrificed the artistic career of his wife to his
ambition? Let me see what really happened....”
At the time of our betrothal she was playing very
small parts. Her position in the artistic world had sunk
to a very modest one, once her want of talent, character
and originality had made her second appearance in
public a fiasco. She lacked all the essentials which go
to make a successful actress. On the day before our
wedding she was playing the part of a society woman in a
very commonplace play; she had only a dozen words to
speak.
For how many tears, how much misery was our
marriage made responsible! It robbed the actress of all
charm, and yet she had been so fascinating as Baroness,
divorced from her husband that she might devote her life
entirely to art.
It was true, I was to blame for this deterioration,
which, after two years’ weeping over steadily shrinking
parts, resulted in her leaving the stage.
At the very moment when her engagement came to an
end I had a success, an undoubted success, as a novelist.
I had already conquered the stage with small, unimportant
plays. Now I was burning to write a play which would
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