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Lonely Lives 95
. . . had sometimes suggested itself to me too ...
momentarily. But I could not entertain it now. I too
have felt as if it were the presentiment of better things.
And since then the old aim seems to me too poor a one
for us too common, to tell the truth. It is like com
ing down from the mountain-top with its wide, free view,
and feeling the narrowness, the nearness of everything in
the valley.
Those who feel the narrow, stifling atmosphere
must either die or leave. Anna Mahr is not made
for the valley. She must live on the heights.
But John Fockerat, harassed and whipped on by
those who love him most, is unmanned, broken
and crushed. He clings to Anna Mahr as one
condemned to death.
John. Help me, Miss Anna! There is no manliness,
no pride left in me. I am quite changed. At this
moment I am not even the man I was before you came
to us. The one feeling left in me is disgust and weari
ness of life. Everything has lost its wr
orth to me, is
soiled, polluted, desecrated, dragged through the mire.
When I think what you, your presence, your words made
me, I feel that if I cannot be that again, then then all
the rest no longer means anything to me. I draw a line
through it all and close my account.
Miss Mahr. It grieves me terribly, Dr. Vockerat, to
see you like this. I hardly know how I am to help you.
But one thing you ought to remember that we fore
saw this. We knew that we must be prepared for this
sooner or later.
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