“Yes. I did those things.”
“Do you feel sorrow for them?”
“No.”
“Do you feel shame for what you did then or for all the things you have done since then?”
“No!”
“You did them because they suited your mood? What you wanted you took; the thing you felt that you wanted to do you did?”
“Yes.”
“Without a regret? Without one single backward thought of us?”
“Why should I think of you?” she asked scornfully. “What did you mean in my life, any of you, after I once put you all behind me? Does one think again of the food that nourished him yesterday, or of the sun that kept him warm? I was born into this world like any other thing that breathes, to live if I was strong, to die if I was weak. I did not ask for life, but when it came, why should I not get all of its brightness if I could? Why should I think of anyone’s pleasures or pains but my own? What is the world to me but the place in which I am to live my own life, in my own way, and for my own good?”
“You need not go on,” he said quietly. “You have told me all that I wished to know.”