Good God! do you think I don't know what that
woman will do for me? She will drag me down, down, down, to her
own level. All my ideas, all my ambition, all my life's work will
be bartered for a smug practice, among paying patients. I shall
scheme and plot to make a big income that we may live like a couple
of plump animals, that we may dress ourselves gaudily and parade
our wealth. Nothing will satisfy her. Such women are leeches;
their only cry is 'give, give, give.' So long as I can supply her
with money she will tolerate me, and to get it for her I shall sell
my heart, and my brain, and my soul. She will load herself with
jewels, and go about from house to house, half naked, to leer at
every man she comes across: that is 'life' to such women. And I
shall trot behind her, the laughing stock of every fool, the
contempt of every man."
His vehemence made any words I could say sound weak before they
were uttered. What argument could I show stronger than that he had
already put before himself? I knew his answer to everything I
could urge.
My mistake had been in imagining him different from other men.
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