ABSTRACT
She was in a paroxysm of the most genuine self-castigation and, having finished, she looked with defiant determination at the elder. ‘That’s exactly the same sort of thing a doctor told me a long time ago,’ observed the elder. ‘He was an elderly and undoubtedly clever man. He spoke to me as frankly as you, though in jest, but in mournful jest. “I love humanity,” he said, “but I can’t help being surprised at myself: the more I love humanity in general, the less I love men in particular, I mean, separately, as separate individuals. In my dreams,” he said, “I am very often passionately determined to serve humanity, and I might quite likely have sacrificed my life for my fellow-creatures, if for some reason it had been suddenly demanded of me, and yet I’m quite incapable of living with anyone in
one room for two days together, and I know that from experience. As soon as anyone comes close to me, his personality begins to oppress my vanity and restrict my freedom. I’m capable of hating the best men in twenty-four hours: one because he sits too long over his dinner, another because he has a cold in the head and keeps on blowing his nose. I become an enemy of people the moment they come close to me. But, on the other hand, it invariably happened that the more I hated men individually, the more ardent became my love for humanity at large.”’
