hood is never a man to blaze new trails in life. Not only is he not such a man, but he might as well have not existed at all!
One morning, one very early and cold morning, I found Tzu-chun in an ill-humored mood. This was unusual for early morning. Her mood might have been the result of my own, for I was filled with resentment against her and was secretly sneering at her. I suddenly realized more clearly than ever before that her intellectual interests and her vaunted courage were only a pretense and that she did not seem to realize this pretense. She no longer touched any books, no longer seemed aware that the first step in life is to seek a way to make life possible; that in this quest we must either struggle hand in hand or part company and seek our own salvation; and that one who can only hang on to another's coattail will interfere with the bravest of warriors and bring destruction upon all.
I felt that our hope lay in separation. I felt that she ought to have the courage to leave me. The thought of her death occurred to me, but I immediately repented and cursed myself for the thought. Fortunately it was early in the morning. There was plenty of time in which to prime myself for speaking the truth. This was my chance to hew out a new road.
I chatted with her, taking care to direct our conversation to the past; I spoke of literature, of certain foreign writers and their works, of Nora in A Doll's House and of The Lady of the Sea, and I praised Nora's courage and determination. These were the things we used to talk about the year before in the dingy room in the Guild; now they sounded hollow and meaningless in my own ears; they sounded more like the mockery of a naughty boy behind one's back.
