Hadria moved restlessly to and fro by the river bank. “One presumes to look upon oneself, at first—in one’s earliest youth,” she said, “as undoubtedly human, with human needs and rights and dignities. But this turns out to be an illusion. It is as an animal that one has to play the really important part in life; it is by submitting to the demands of society, in this respect, that one wins rewards and commendation. Of course, if one likes to throw in a few ornamental extras, so much the better; it keeps up appearances and the aspect of refined sentiment—but the main point——”
“You are extravagant!” cried Miss Du Prel. “That is not the right way to look at it.”
“It is certainly not the convenient way to look at it. It is doubtless wise to weave as many garlands as you can, to deck yourself for the sacrifice. By that means, you don’t quite see which way you are going, because of the masses of elegant vegetation.”
“Ah! Hadria, you exaggerate, you distort; you forget so many things—the sentiments, the affections, the thousand details that hallow that crude foundation which you see only bare and unsoftened.”
“A repulsive object tastefully decorated, is to me only the more repulsive,” returned Hadria, with suppressed passion.
“There will come a day when you will feel very differently,” prophesied Miss Du Prel.
“Perhaps. Why should I, more than the others, remain uninfluenced by the usual processes of blunting, and grinding down, and stupefying, till one grows accustomed to one’s function, one’s intolerable function?”
“My dear, my dear!”
“I am sorry if I shock you, but that is how I feel. I have seen this sort of traditional existence and nothing else, all my life, and I have been brought up to it, with the rest—prepared and decked out like some animal for market—all in the most refined and graceful manner possible; but how can one help seeing through the disguise; how can one be blind to the real nature of the transaction, and to the fate that awaits one—awaits one as inexorably as death, unless by some force of one’s own, with all the world—friends and enemies—in opposition, one can avert it?”
Miss Du Prel remained silent.