“Ah! Janka, my dearest, how often have I entreated you!” Then, in a gayer tone: “I am not an experimentalist in any sense of the word. And it is thus that I know to-day just as much as I did yesterday; and I cling to my illusions as I did of old times.”
“But why will you never consider this question with your eyes open and face to face? Why are you for ever afraid of it? Why must the dreadful burden of seeing things clearly always be borne by me? Oh, Witold!”
He did not answer me, but walked nervously up and down the apartment. Then, coming to a stop at a small table, with his face turned away from me, he lit a cigarette.
A short silence followed. Then I went on.
“It’s not that I want anyone to lean upon. Understand me. I am not in need of any sustaining or protecting power. I only wish for some power able to counterbalance my own. I want to be helped by strength equivalent to that which I myself put forth: I would only have an equal weight in each scale.... Oh, if you but knew how terrified I am, when my scale, becoming heavier, sinks down, down, into the very lowest depths of my sad unfathomable pride!”
Here I paused for a time, awaiting some reply.
Unexpectedly, he began to speak, quietly, in smooth tones, and without looking in my direction.
“Let me tell you, Janka—I never yet spoke to you about this, but to-day I must: it weighs upon me too heavily, too insupportably. Straightforward I am, it may be, but I am not a man who enjoys telling the truth; I simply don’t like it. Well, there’s one point....”
He broke off, to continue presently in yet smoother tones.
“There’s one point—I must tell you, my dearest love, that you make me suffer extreme tortures. Yes, you do. You sometimes torture me to such an extent that I lose all self-command, all patience.... I am in torments, to put it plainly—I beseech you, believe what I am saying now. I cannot break myself in to accept your theories. I am unable; besides, I will not.... You make no sacrifice, you. Have you ever given anything up for my sake? No. If not, you have no right to lay down conditions. You must take me as I am; try to understand me and to adapt yourself to me, rather than me to yourself. Remember, I have no sympathy whatever with high-flown sentiments; I cannot walk on stilts. I cannot, no, I cannot! All that is such a trial to me that I am often longing to get away—away—as far as I possibly can go! And so I concoct untruths, invent mythical shooting and supper-parties, and go to imaginary meetings—simply because I have to breathe now and then. You can see that I am at present speaking the truth! Not that I do not love you! Oh, no! who is it—if I did not love you so deeply, so intensely as I do—who is it that could make me bear this even for one instant?... Truly, you have not the slightest idea to what lengths of despotism your strong individuality drives you. Your demands on me are endless, Janka; you put me in fetters, with your exactions, and those tastes of yours that I have to follow. Have I ever, in anything whatever, interfered with you? No; never have I brought forward the slightest claim to anything; nay, I have preferred that you should feel yourself in some respect to be in arrears with me, for I reverence the liberty of others. Why can you not have the same toleration for me?... And then, for the life of me, I cannot make out why you are, all of you, of such jealous dispositions; nor why you all go on everlastingly philosophizing in that way!”