When I venture timidly to propose that I should leave him and live by myself, he looks so honestly hurt and grieved that I have not the courage to insist further.

And Frau Haber, kind soul, who is so set upon getting me married and thereby insuring my happiness! I and marrying! What have I to offer a woman?
Love?
I am too poor in illusions.
Amusements--society--the theater?
All that is a horror to me.

And moreover, I question if I have a right to bring a being into the world, over whose destiny I have no control, and whose existence would most certainly be richer in pain, and misery than in happiness; and I know unquestionably that I have no right to teach a light-hearted girl to think, and force her to exchange the artless gayety of a playful little animal for my own fruitless speculations and never-to-be-satisfied yearnings.
"In face of all this, serious doubts arise in my mind.

Is it for me to speak with superciliousness and superiority of Paul, or to look down upon him?
I ask you, as I have been asking myself every day these three weeks--is he not the wise man and I the fool?
He the useful member of society, and I the mere hanger-on?
His life the real, mine the shadow?
That he is happy I have already said; that I am not, I know.

His system therefore leads to peace and contentment, mine does not.