That was why the first thing he said to his sister after standing up straight again was: “Now I know what you are: You are my self-love!” No doubt it sounded strange, but it really described what moved him. “In a certain sense, I’ve always lacked true self-love, which other people have so strongly,” he explained. “And now evidently, by mistake or by fate, that self-love was embodied in you, instead of in myself!” he added without further ado.

It was his first attempt that evening to form a judgment on the meaning of his sister’s arrival.

17

THE SIAMESE TWINS

Later that evening he returned to this.

“You should know,” he began to tell his sister, “that there is a kind of self-love I have never experienced, a certain tender relationship to oneself that seems to come naturally to most other people. I’m not sure how to describe it. I could say, for example, that I have always had lovers with whom I was mismatched. They were illustrations of some sudden whim, caricatures of my mood of the moment: in other words, basically just examples of my inability to enter into natural relationships with other people. Even that has to do with one’s relationship to oneself. Basically I always chose women I didn’t like—”

“But you were perfectly justified in doing so!” Agathe interrupted him. “If I were a man, I would have no qualms treating women as irresponsibly as I pleased. And I would desire them out of distraction and wonder, nothing more!”

“Really? You would? That’s nice of you!”

“They’re ridiculous parasites. They share a man’s life together with his dog!” She said this without even a hint of moral indignation. She was pleasantly tired and was keeping her eyes closed, having gone to bed early, and Ulrich, who had come to say good night, saw her lying in his place in his bed.