I have thought it over from every
point of view. We are not merely individuals, we belong to a whole,
and have always to take the whole into consideration. We are
absolutely dependent. If it were possible to live in solitude I could
let it pass. I should then bear the burden heaped upon me, though real
happiness would be gone. But so many people are forced to live without
real happiness, and I should have to do it too, and I could. We don't
need to be happy, least of all have we any claim on happiness, and it
is not absolutely necessary to put out of existence the one who has
taken our happiness away. We can let him go, if we desire to live on
apart from the world. But in the social life of the world a certain
something has been worked out that is now in force, and in accordance
with the principles of which we have been accustomed to judge
everybody, ourselves as well as others. It would never do to run
counter to it. Society would despise us and in the end we should
despise ourselves and, not being able to bear the strain, we should
fire a bullet into our brains. Pardon me for delivering such a
discourse, which after all is only a repetition of what every man has
said to himself a hundred times. But who can say anything now? Once
more then, no hatred or anything of the kind, and I do not care to
have blood on my hands for the sake of the happiness taken away from
me. But that social something, let us say, which tyrannizes us, takes
no account of charm, or love, or limitation.
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