Anne looked sadly down. “So he too has failed to grasp what he reached for. Does nobody grasp it?”
“Once upon a time we were all revolutionaries,” said Walter, “for is not youth a revolution in itself? We are all borne to the executioner: one for a thought, the other for a dream, and ... all of us for love. It sounds mad, but it is so. Man must die many deaths in himself to be able to live. I was just the same as the others and those that are young to-day are as we were in old times. In its unlimited conceit youth of every age believes that it has discovered the rising of the sun and all youth shouts vehemently that its sun will never set. That is as it ought to be. When the sun comes to set, the youth of another age believes the same thing. Men drop out, but their faith remains in others, and in others again, and that is the thing that matters.”
It seemed to Anne, that Adam Walter, who once, when he was young, had guided her thoughts to freedom, now taught her the art of compromise.
Again Walter attempted to be ironical, but his voice failed him.
“Man is full of colours, brilliant colours, when he starts. They all wear off. Only grey remains. The awful grey spreads and becomes greyer and greyer till it covers the man and his life.”
“Oh, Walter, how sad all this is....”
“To me it is sad no more. I have got over it. Don’t be sorry for me, please. Even for the grey people there are still some lovely things in this world. The grey ones see other people’s colours. They alone can see them truly. Since I have renounced creating myself, I enjoy peacefully, profoundly, other people’s creations. Before, I was aggressive and impatient, now I love even Schumann and Schubert, and all those who have dreamed and who woke from their dreams.”
Anne sat with half-closed eyes, bent a little, and her pale hands were interlocked over her knee.
“Have I grieved you?” asked Walter hesitatingly.
The woman shook her head.