No, no, do not try to impose upon me. You have
not been happy. You might have been so, you have come near happiness
countless times, but you have always passed it by. You have lived in a
constant state of intoxication, and intoxication is always followed by
illness, to escape which you have sought intoxication anew. Robert, you
must feel a loathing of such a life. Women admire or fear you, men envy
or abhor you, but how does it aid you? It cannot make you happier. You
possess great talents. I, who know you as you perhaps do not know
yourself, am conscious of it, and can prove it. You had the capacity for
everything. You only needed to choose, and you might have been a great
poet, a great musician, a great artist, a great statesman. And what have
you done with all your brilliant gifts? Used them as men use mirrors to
catch larks, to dazzle silly women."
Robert had listened silently and looked out of the window. Here he
interrupted her. "To shape one's own life harmoniously is also an art,
perhaps the greatest. Whoever makes his life a work of art needs to
create nothing else, and has rightly used his talents.
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