5

Fighting with Myself

The silent walls of my pale room look at me, reproaching me for not admitting within them even a ray of happiness. My damp eyes look resentfully back at me through the mirror, rebuking me for not allowing them to see the bright world. Is it my fault that I can’t force myself to be happy? Do I hate myself for not allowing myself to love? Why do I let my thoughts go against the feelings that are like sisters to my desires? Why, oh why? Perhaps I hate myself. I am my own enemy. I hate myself and I can’t escape myself. I’ll be stuck with myself until the day I die.

I tell myself to stop thinking about myself, try to lose myself among thoughts of the millions of other people in the wide world and simply stop existing, be nothing. I am not here. But then whose arms are these, reaching out for him? Whose lips are calling his name?

I’m seized by a sudden fear. I’m afraid of going crazy. I want to gather my tired thoughts toward one purpose—not to think at all. I will suppress my feelings. I want to be indifferent toward myself and toward everything around me. I want to call him back and say to him: you love me, I hate myself. I don’t care what the end will be; whether I, like thousands of others, will be lost, whether I’ll find myself insulted, lost, rejected until some later date. I no longer want to be what I am: lonely and alone. I don’t want to be so ensnared in my sadness for my dead life.

To think that I could even consider calling A. back after he’s already come and gone, perhaps having already decided never to return! Why did I act as though I didn’t see him when he was here, sitting right next to me? He looked at my half-closed eyes, said that I was very pale, that I seemed tired, sick, asked what was wrong with me and I answered—nothing.

If my silence communicated nothing, then my passion was a complete waste. Whoever does not understand the language of silence—the language of eyes, hands, and voices—is not in love. He doesn’t love me.

But if he doesn’t love me, why did he come? Just out of curiosity, to see whether I love him? Did he want to compare me with other women?

I looked at A.’s neck and pictured the two arms that had wrapped around it while I stood in a dark corner in front of his window like someone banished from the world. At the thought, a gnawing pain pierced my heart like the point of a spear. I freed my fingers from his and suppressed the pain so that a sigh wouldn’t give it away.

Why is he to blame if he loves me the same way he loves others? He wants to live the way he wants. He wants to exchange the grand feeling of one great love for many smaller ones. If I asked him why he carried on with another woman in his room, he would answer that it was because I had not come to see him. I gave away my place to the other woman; I withdrew myself from him of my own accord.

There’s so much I could say to such an answer! But I was silent, silent like all the other times I’ve had so much to say. I was silent and only retreated further when he tried to draw closer to me. He finally went away bearing his wounded pride.

Men have a different sort of pride than women do. Women are proud of their virtue, and men are proud of their sins. While women yearn to love, men long to live. But loving and living are two different things, even if they often go together. Love is what makes life beautiful, while living, the way he means it, is the death of love.

I’m trying to wrest control of my feelings from my rational mind. It tells me to rid myself of this crazy desire for fanatical love if I don’t want to betray myself, if I don’t want to lose not only my self-love, but also my self-respect. It seems to me that there is no struggle more difficult for women than the struggle between love and self-respect.

Will I win this fight?

Fighting oneself is the greatest fight; vanquishing oneself is the most beautiful victory.