point of suffocation under fear and self-reproaches.
Conclusion for my case from “The Judgment.” I am indirectly in her debt for the story. But Georg goes to pieces because of his fiancée.
Coitus as punishment for the happiness of being together. Live as ascetically as possible, more ascetically than a bachelor, that is the only possible way for me to endure
marriage. But she?
And despite all this, if we, I and F., had equal rights, if we had the same prospects and possibilities, I would not marry. But this blind alley into which I have slowly
pushed her life makes it an unavoidable duty for me, although its consequences are by no means unpredictable. Some secret law of human relationship is at work here.
I had great difficulty writing the letter to her parents, especially because a first draft, written under particularly unfavorable circumstances, for a long time resisted every
change. Today, nevertheless, I have just about succeeded, at least there is no untruth in it, and after all it is still something that parents can read and understand.
15 August. Agonies in bed towards morning. Saw only solution in jumping out of the window. My mother came to my bedside and asked whether I had sent off the
letter and whether it was my original text. I said it was the original text, but made even sharper. She said she does not understand me. I answered, she most certainly
does not understand me, and by no means only in this matter. Later she asked me if I were going to write to Uncle Alfred, he deserved it. I asked why he deserved it.
He has telegraphed, he has written, he has your welfare so much at heart. “These are simply formalities,” I said, “he is a complete stranger to me, he misunderstands
me entirely, he does not know what I want and need, I have nothing in common with him.”
“So no one understands you,” my mother said, “I suppose I am a stranger to you too, and your father as well. So we all want only what is bad for you.”
“Certainly, you are all strangers to me, we are related only by blood, but that never shows itself. Of course you don’t want what is bad for me.”
Through this and several other observations of myself I have come to believe that there are possibilities in my ever-increasing inner decisiveness and conviction which
may enable me to pass the test of marriage in spite of everything, and even to steer it in a direction favorable to my development. Of course, to a certain extent this is a
belief that I grasp at when I am already on the window sill.
I’ll shut myself off from everyone to the point of insensibility. Make an enemy of everyone, speak to no one.
The man with the dark, stern eyes who was carrying the pile of old coats on his shoulder.
LEOPOLD S. [a tall, strong man, clumsy, jerky movements, loosely hanging, wrinkled, checked clothes, enters hurriedly through the door on the right into
the large room, claps his hands, and shouts]: Felice! Felice! [Without pausing an instant for a reply to his shout he hurries to the middle door which he
opens, again shouting] Felice!
FBLICE S. [enters through the door at the left, stops at the door, a forty year old woman in a kitchen apron]: Here I am, Leo. How nervous you have become
recently! What is it you want?
LEOPOLD [turns with a jerk, then stops and bites his lips]: Well, then, come over here! [He walks over to the sofa.]
FELICE [does not move]: Quick! What do you want? I really have to go back to the kitchen.
LEOPOLD [from the sofa]: Forget the kitchen! Come here! I want to tell you something important. It will make up for it. All right, come on!
FELICE [walks towards him slowly, raising the shoulder straps of her apron]: Well, what is it that’s so important? If you’re making a fool of me I’ll be angry,
seriously. [Stops in front of him.]
LEOPOLD: Well, sit down, then.
FELICE: And suppose I don’t want to?
LEOPOLD: Then I can’t tell it to you. I must have you close to me.