It is the
misfortune of my destiny, it is the enmity of others, which have made me
a wanderer and an artist. What I wanted was to live a human life; I had
a heart, it has been torn violently from my breast. All that has been
left me is a head, a head full of noise and pain, of horrible memories,
of images of woe, of scenes of outrage. And because in writing stories
to earn my bread I could not help remembering my sorrows, because I had
the audacity to say that in married life there were to be found
miserable beings, by reason of the weakness which is enjoined upon the
woman, by reason of the brutality which is permitted to the man, by
reason of the turpitudes which society covers and protects with a veil,
I am pronounced immoral, I am treated as if I were the enemy of the
human race."[319]
If only, alas, together with her honesty and her courage, she could feel
within herself that she had also light and hope and power; that she was
able to lead those whom she loved, and who looked to her for guidance!
But no; her very own children, witnesses of her suffering, her
uncertainty, her struggles, her evil report, may come to doubt her:--
"My poor children, my own flesh and blood, will perhaps turn upon me and
say: 'You are leading us wrong, you mean to ruin us as well as yourself.
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