And as each star runs its eternal course through space, isolated amid
countless myriads of other stars, so each woman goes her solitary way
through life.
It would be better for her if she walked barefoot over red-hot
ploughshares, for the pain she would suffer would be slight indeed
compared to that which she must feel when, with a smile on her lips, she
leaves her own youth behind and enters the regions of despair we call
"growing old," and "old age...."
All this philosophizing is the result, no doubt, of having eaten
halibut for lunch; it is a solid fish and difficult to digest.
Perhaps, too, having no company but Jeanne and Torp, I am reduced to my
own aimless reflections.
Just as clothes exercise no influence on the majority of men, so their
emotional life is not much affected by circumstances. With us women it
is otherwise. We really _are_ different women according to the dresses
we wear. We assume a personality in accord with our costume. We laugh,
talk and act at the caprice of purely external circumstances.
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