‘Certainly not,’ replied Walstein, ‘and I fear I never shall be.’
‘You have been?’ inquired the physician.
‘I have had some fancies, perhaps too many,’ answered the patient; ‘but youth deludes itself. My idea of a heroine has never been realised, and, in all probability, never will be.’
‘Besides an idea of a heroine,’ said Schulembourg, ‘you have also, if I mistake not, an idea of a hero?’
‘Without doubt,’ replied Walstein. ‘I have preconceived for myself a character which I have never achieved.’
‘Yet, if you have never met a heroine nearer your ideal than your hero, why should you complain?’ rejoined Schulembourg.
‘There are moments when my vanity completes my own portrait,’ said Walstein.
‘And there are moments when our imagination completes the portrait of our mistress,’ rejoined Schulembourg.
‘You reason,’ said Walstein. ‘I was myself once fond of reasoning, but the greater my experience, the more I have become convinced that man is not a rational animal. He is only truly good or great when he acts from passion.’
‘Passion is the ship, and reason is the rudder,’ observed Schulembourg.