"Those are dreams. Thousands have given their lives to become convinced of that and thousands have cursed that unattainable mirage."
"But those thousands had their lives filled with that mirage and felt more than one can feel, who dreams about nothing."
"But since they were not happy, what is it all worth?"
"And are most people happy?"
"A thousandfold more so than we!"
Wladek emphasized that "we" significantly.
"Never!" cried Janina, "for our happiness lies in pain as it does in joy, in dejection as well as ecstasy. Even this in itself is happiness: to be able to develop one's self spiritually; to reach far out into infinity with the arms of desire; to create new worlds in our mind, larger and more beautiful than those surrounding us; to chant, even through tears and pain, hymns to beauty and immortality; to dream, but to dream so intensely as to forget about life entirely and to live in dreams alone!"
Janina felt so great a flood of happiness and inspiration flowing into her soul that she spoke, as it were, only in periods of her thought, so that she might express herself at least in part. She spoke, entirely forgetful of the fact that some one was listening to her and spun out aloud ever grander and ever more evanescent dreams.
Wladek at first listened attentively, but later grew impatient.
"A comedienne!" he thought with irony. And he was sure that Janina was unfurling before him the peacock feathers of fervor and enthusiasm merely to fascinate and conquer him. He did not answer or interrupt her, for it finally began to bore him.