A Hero of Our Time
Page 31
CHAPTER XVI. 25th June.
I SOMETIMES despise myself... Is not that the reason why I despiseothers also?... I have grown incapable of noble impulses; I am afraid ofappearing ridiculous to myself. In my place, another would have offeredPrincess Mary son coeur et sa fortune; but over me the word "marry" hasa kind of magical power. However passionately I love a woman, if sheonly gives me to feel that I have to marry her--then farewell, love! Myheart is turned to stone, and nothing will warm it anew. I am preparedfor any other sacrifice but that; my life twenty times over, nay, myhonour I would stake on the fortune of a card... but my freedom I willnever sell. Why do I prize it so highly? What is there in it to me? Forwhat am I preparing myself? What do I hope for from the future?... Intruth, absolutely nothing. It is a kind of innate dread, an inexplicableprejudice... There are people, you know, who have an unaccountable dreadof spiders, beetles, mice... Shall I confess it? When I was but a child,a certain old woman told my fortune to my mother. She predicted for medeath from a wicked wife. I was profoundly struck by her words at thetime: an irresistible repugnance to marriage was born within my soul...Meanwhile, something tells me that her prediction will be realized; Iwill try, at all events, to arrange that it shall be realized as late inlife as possible.