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I knew that she would perhaps be muddled and not take it all in exactly,
but I knew, too, that she would grasp the gist of it, very well indeed. And
so, indeed, she did. She turned white as a handkerchief, tried to say
something, and her lips worked painfully; but she sank on a chair as
though she had been felled by an axe. And all the time afterwards she
listened to me with her lips parted and her eyes wide open, shuddering
with awful terror. The cynicism, the cynicism of my words overwhelmed
her ....
"Save you!" I went on, jumping up from my chair and running up and
down the room before her. "Save you from what? But perhaps I am worse
than you myself. Why didn't you throw it in my teeth when I was giving
you that sermon: 'But what did you come here yourself for? was it to read
us a sermon?' Power, power was what I wanted then, sport was what I
wanted, I wanted to wring out your tears, your humiliation, your
hysteria--that was what I wanted then! Of course, I couldn't keep it up
then, because I am a wretched creature, I was frightened, and, the devil
knows why, gave you my address in my folly. Afterwards, before I got
home, I was cursing and swearing at you because of that address, I hated
you already because of the lies I had told you. Because I only like playing
with words, only dreaming, but, do you know, what I really want is that
you should all go to hell. That is what I want. I want peace; yes, I'd sell
the whole world for a farthing, straight off, so long as I was left in peace.
Is the world to go to pot, or am I to go without my tea? I say that the world
may go to pot for me so long as I always get my tea. Did you know that, or
not? Well, anyway, I know that I am a blackguard, a scoundrel, an egoist,
a sluggard. Here I have been shuddering for the last three days at the
thought of your coming. And do you know what has worried me particularly
for these three days? That I posed as such a hero to you, and now
you would see me in a wretched torn dressing-gown, beggarly, loathsome.
I told you just now that I was not ashamed of my poverty; so you
may as well know that I am ashamed of it; I am more ashamed of it than
of anything, more afraid of it than of being found out if I were a thief,
because I am as vain as though I had been skinned and the very air
blowing on me hurt. Surely by now you must realise that I shall never
forgive you for having found me in this wretched dressing-gown, just as I
was flying at Apollon like a spiteful cur. The saviour, the former hero, was
flying like a mangy, unkempt sheep-dog at his lackey, and the lackey was
jeering at him! And I shall never forgive you for the tears I could not help
shedding before you just now, like some silly woman put to shame! And
for what I am confessing to you now, I shall never forgive you either!
Yes--you must answer for it all because you turned up like this, because I
am a blackguard, because I am the nastiest, stupidest, absurdest and most
envious of all the worms on earth, who are not a bit better than I am, but,
the devil knows why, are never put to confusion; while I shall always be
insulted by every louse, that is my doom! And what is it to me that you
don't understand a word of this! And what do I care, what do I care about
you, and whether you go to ruin there or not? Do you understand? How I
shall hate you now after saying this, for having been here and listening.
Why, it's not once in a lifetime a man speaks out like this, and then it is in
hysterics! ... What more do you want? Why do you still stand confronting
me, after all this? Why are you worrying me? Why don't you go?"
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