And what could it help you if he stayed? And even if he felt something like filial tenderness toward you, how could that help you?... How can he or anybody else help you?... You say that loneliness horrifies you?... And if you had a wife by your side to-day, wouldn't you be lonely just the same?... Wouldn't you be lonely even if you were surrounded by children and grandchildren?... Suppose you had kept your money, your fame and your genius--don't you think you would be lonely for all that?... Suppose we were always attended by a train of bacchantes--nevertheless we should have to tread the downward path alone--we, who have never belonged to anybody ourselves. The process of aging must needs be a lonely one for our kind, and he is nothing but a fool who doesn't in time prepare himself against having to rely on any human being. JULIAN And do you imagine, Sala, that you need no human being? SALA In the manner I have used them they will always be at my disposal. I have always been in favor of keeping at a certain distance. It is not my fault that other people haven't realized it. JULIAN In that respect you are right, Sala. For you have never really loved anybody in this world. SALA Perhaps not. And how about you? No more than I, Julian.... To love means to live for the sake of somebody else. I don't say that it is a more desirable form of existence, but I do think, at any rate, that you and I have been pretty far removed from it. What has that which one like us brings into the world got to do with love? Though it include all sorts of funny, hypocritical, tender, unworthy, passionate things that pose as love--it isn't love for all that.... Have we ever made a sacrifice by which our sensuality or our vanity didn't profit?... Have we ever hesitated to betray or blackguard decent people, if by doing so we could gain an hour of happiness or of mere lust?... Have we ever risked our peace or our lives--not out of whim or recklessness--but to promote the welfare of someone who had given all to us?... Have we ever denied ourselves an enjoyment unless from such denial we could at least derive some comfort?... And do you think that we could dare to turn to any human being, man or woman, with a demand that any gift of ours be returned? I am not thinking of pearls now, or annuities, or cheap wisdom, but of some piece of our real selves, some hour of our own existence, which we have surrendered to such a being without at once exacting payment for it in some sort of coin. My dear Julian, we have kept our doors open, and have allowed our treasures to be viewed--but prodigal with them we have never been. You no more than I. We may just as well join hands, Julian. I am a little less prone to complain than you are--that's the whole difference.... But I am not telling you anything new. All this you know as well as I do. It is simply impossible for us not to know ourselves. Of course, we try at times conscientiously to deceive ourselves, but it never works.