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A BIOGRAPHY
277
spare me. I should only be too lucky to have done
with it, but such happiness will not fall to my lot."
While, as we traveled through from Copenhagen to
Paris, we sat together motionless in the
railway-carriage, Sönya said, over and over again:
"Just think if the train which is passing should run
off the line and crush us! Railway accidents happen
so often. Why cannot one happen now ? Why
cannot fate take pity on me ?"
During the long days and nights she spoke
unceasingly of her own life, her own fate. She talked more
to herself than to me. She went through a kind of
self-examination, as though seeking the reason why she
must be always suffering and unhappy; why could she
never get what she wanted—illimitable love ? "Why,
why can no one love me ?" she cried, again and again.
"I could be more to a man than most women — and
why are the most insignificant women loved while I
remain unloved 1"
I tried to explain. She asked too much. She was
not one to be content with the kind of love that may
fall to any woman’s lot. She was too introspective.
She brooded too much about herself, and had not the
kind of devotion which forgets itself. Her devotion
demanded as much as it gave, and unceasingly worried
itself and its object by considering and weighing all
that it received.
How melancholy was our arrival at Paris ! We had
often pictured it as so bright! We drove straight from
the station to Nielsen’s Library, in order to ask for
letters which we were expecting with impatience. They
had arrived, and gave us sufficient food for thought.
I had only been once before in Paris, and then only
for a short time on my return from London in 1884.
I asked Sönya about the palaces and squares which
18*
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