human
I knew of course that you would ask me that some day. It was in the nature of things. A great friendship like ours was bound to lead to that question. But it can't be, dearest Duco. It can't be, my dear, dear boy. I have my own ideas ... but it's not that. I am against marriage ... but it's not that. In some cases a woman is unfaithful to all her ideas in a single second.... Then what is it?...
gpt
It is this, that I am afraid of marriage. I have been through it, I know what it means.... I see my husband before me now. I see that habit, that groove before me, in which the subtler individual characteristics are effaced. That is what marriage is: a habit, a groove. And I tell you candidly: I think marriage loathsome. I think passion beautiful, but marriage is not passion. Passion can be noble and superhuman, but marriage is a human institution based upon our petty human morality and calculation. And I have become frightened of those prudent moral ties. I promised myself--and I believe that I shall keep my promise--never to marry again. My whole nature has become unfitted for it. I am no longer the Hague girl going to parties and dinners and looking out for a husband, together with her parents.... My love for him was passion. And in my marriage he wanted to restrict that passion to a groove and a custom. Then I rebelled.... I'd rather not talk about it. Passion lasts too short a time to fill a married life.... Mutual esteem to follow, etcetera? One needn't marry for that. I can feel esteem just as well without being married. Of course there is the question of the children, there are many difficulties. I can't think it all out now. I merely feel now, very seriously and calmly, that I am not fit to marry and that I never will marry again. I should not make you happy.... Don't be sad, Duco. I am fond of you, I love you. And perhaps ... had I met you at the right moment. Had I met you before, in my Hague life ... you would certainly have stood too high for me. I could not have grown fond of you. Now I can understand you, respect you and look up to you. I tell you this quite simply, that I love you and look up to you, look up to you, in spite of all your gentleness, as I never looked up to my husband, however much he made his manly privilege prevail. And you are to believe that, very firmly and with great certainty, and you must believe that I am true. I am coquettish ... only with Gilio.