Page:The Makropoulos Secret (1925).pdf/164

THE MAKROPOULOS SECRET does he learn? He doesn’t even enjoy the fruit of the tree he has planted; he doesn’t learn all that his predecessors knew; he doesn’t finish his work; he dies, and he hasn’t lived. Ah, God, but we live so insignificantly!

Well, Vitek

And he hasn’t had time for gladness, and he hasn’t had time to think, and he hasn’t had time for anything except a desire for bread. He hasn’t done anything, and he hasn’t known anything. No, not even himself. Why have you lived? Has it been worth the trouble?

Do you want to make me cry?

We die like animals. What else is immortality of the soul but a protest against the shortness of life? A human being is something more than a turtle or a raven; a man needs more time to live. Sixty years—it’s not right. It’s weakness, it’s ignorance, and it’s animal-like.

Oh, my, and I am already seventy-six!