During our conversation, I was under the same impression that I had,
when I went to see Mme. Smilowicz. I was no longer ‘up-to-date,’ for I
had long given up reading.—Obojanski talked at length to me about
various changes that had latterly taken place in his field of science.
Those last years had been lost for me. My abandonment of the
“Ice-plains” had cost me dear. I had learned nothing by having become
acquainted with Life; I was not capable of forming any synthetic views
about it. The more we know of it, the less is it possible to comprehend
it in any systematized generalization.—Everything in Life contradicts
everything else: Science is by far more consistent.
“But,” Obojanski asked, “to what am I to ascribe your return?”
“To Smilowicz.”
“I don’t mean that. There must have been something deeper down—some
change in your mind and views, eh?”
He no doubt expected to hear some romantic phrases about the barrenness
of life spent as in those years, and of its failure to give me
happiness.
Instead of which, I made him this unforeseen reply:
“Well, on the whole, it is because I prefer to return to you whom I have
left, rather than to the Church!”
And Obojanski eyed me in bewilderment.