Report books

"Feather and scale inextricably blended."

For me, in an outwardly calm and care-free life, an anxious and
terrible struggle with

"Many a check
And many a change, a dark and wild turmoil."

The distress, the shame, the self-contempt, the despair resulting
therefrom made my behavior toward Emmy so strange, so uneven and
capricious that she often felt hurt by it, and so was careful to draw
back a little more.
Before long I had a rival: a young English officer, equally handsome,
equally good to look at and strongly built as I, but somewhat calmer,
somewhat more measured and somewhat more assured of his own right and
virtue. For these qualities he was hateful to me, but with secret
bitterness I recognized his superior rights, because I took him for a
pure man.
In my country, in Spain, in France, also in Germany, men, even those
calling themselves well bred, are often caddish enough to make coarse
sexual jokes toward comparative strangers and to assume a freer tone
when no women are present.


Pages:
87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111