You yourself say that you have character. Keep up good
heart, you won't have long to wait," I said to him, but not very
consistently, because I was much stirred both by a feeling of sympathy
and a feeling of repentance, because I had allowed myself mentally to
sin in my judgment of a man truly and deeply unhappy.
"Yes," he began, "if I had heard even once, at the time when I was in
that hell, one single word of sympathy, of advice, of friendship--one
humane word such as you have just spoken, perhaps I might have calmly
endured all; perhaps I might have struggled, and been a soldier. But now
this is horrible. . . . When I think soberly, I long for death. Why
should I love my despicable life and my own self, now that I am ruined for
all that is worth while in the world? And at the least danger, I suddenly,
in spite of myself, begin to pray for my miserable life, and to watch
over it as though it were precious, and I cannot, je ne puis pas,
control myself. That is, I could," he continued again after a minute's
silence, "but this is too hard work for me, a monstrous work, when I am
alone. With others, under special circumstances, when you are going into
action, I am brave, j'ai fait mes epreuves, because I am vain and proud:
that is my failing, and in presence of others.
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