“I am no fool.”
“But it might have been something for your whole life.”
“As it is it’s something for my whole life, though of course you can’t understand it. I dare affirm that never has a meeting of two persons been so unconstrained, so deep and free. People talk of intuitive thought, but here was an intuitive companionship without selfish purpose or social barrier. Never a second time would such a flood of clear and radiant ideas have surged through my consciousness. I tell you, the most involved concatenation arranged itself automatically with lightning speed like nodal figures at the stroke of the bow. And the memory of our communion remains always equally fresh and pure just because I did not wear it stale with further acquaintance. I don’t lie when I say that I have lived in a sort of spiritual wedlock with that unknown woman. Who can prove that the long years give more than one exquisite hour? Humanity is so brittle and changeful that a long life together must always be precarious. I have no idea whether she was married or became married later. But it may very well be that I know that woman better than her husband does. Strong impressions wear away. People can’t be true to each other over a long period. For truth the great requisite is freshness, immediateness. Truth must always be new, according to my philosophy. Habit is truth’s worst enemy. How then can a lifelong marriage be true?”
Axelson raised his eyebrows:
“Wait a bit. I must strike in and put a few questions before I get angry. For instance, it would be nice to hear a closer description of this lady with whom you have lived in such a remarkable wedlock.”
“Very good, I can answer you, since I’m fully armed against all sarcasms. She was a woman of an altogether unusual feminine spirit. In her archness there was a delicate acknowledgment of her womanly limitations. And he who knows his bounds is already beyond them. She had, perhaps, no thoughts that were actually her own, but she had a quick, gentle receptivity which gave one the pleasant feeling that everything fell upon good ground and bore fruit a hundredfold. I begot thoughts and dreams upon her and enjoyed a sort of intellectual fertilization.”
“But may I permit myself to doubt whether this glorified bridal mood really made such a permanent impression on the other person?”
“What right have you to do that?”
“Oh, one might suppose it was only for a moment that she reverted to the usual flighty sentimentality which lies like a broken husk around a woman’s realism. The realism is genuine because it is rooted in suffering and the hard limitations of nature. No, woman is not what the bachelor thinks, not what either the ethereal or the crude bachelors think. It may well be that her instinct was whispering all the time in the depths: Look out for this man, because he is in reality a damned little egoist.”
Modin did not seem to be impressed.