FELIX
I am listening.
JULIAN
I had come to Kirchau in June, one beautiful Summer morning—with him.... You know about that, don't you? I meant to stay only a few days. But I stayed on and on. More than once I tried to get away while it was still time. But I stayed. (Smiling) And with fated inevitability we slipped into sin, happiness, doom, betrayal—and dreams. Yes, indeed, there was more of those than of anything else. And after that last farewell, meant to be for a night only—as I got back to the little inn and started to make things ready for our journey—only then did I for the first time become really conscious of what had happened and was about to happen. Actually, it was almost as if I had just waked up. Only then, in the stillness of that night, as I was standing at the open window, did it grow clear to me that next morning an hour would come by which my whole future must be determined. And then I began to feel ... as if faint shiverings had been streaming down my body. Below me I could see the stretch of road along which I had just come. It ran on and on through the country, climbing the hills that cut off the view, and losing itself in the open, the limitless.... It led to thousands of unknown and invisible roads, all of which at that moment remained at my disposal. It seemed to me as if my future, radiant with glory and adventure, lay waiting for me behind those hills—but for me alone. Life was mine—but only this one life. And in order to seize it and enjoy it fully—in order to live it as it had been shaped for me by fate—I needed the carelessness and freedom I had enjoyed until then. And I marveled almost at my own readiness to give away the recklessness of my youth and the fullness of my existence.... And to what purpose?—For the sake of a passion which, after all, despite its ardor and its transports, had begun like many others, and would be destined to end like all of them.
FELIX
Destined to end...? Must come to an end?
JULIAN
Yes. Must. The moment I foresaw the end, I had in a measure reached it. To wait for something that must come, means to go through it a thousand times—to go through it helplessly and needlessly and resentfully. This I felt acutely at that moment. And it frightened me. At the same time I felt clearly that I was about to act like a brute and a traitor toward a human being who had given herself to me in full confidence.—But everything seemed more desirable—not only for me, but for her also—than a slow, miserable, unworthy decline. And all my scruples were submerged in a monstrous longing to go on with my life as before, without duties or ties. There wasn't much time left for consideration. And I was glad of it. I had made up my mind. I didn't wait for the morning. Before the stars had set, I was off.
FELIX
You ran away....