Once again another will than his
own had determined his path for him. He resigned himself without a
struggle; he allowed himself to be taken along like an obedient
child. Was it weakness? Perhaps. Possibly, however, it was not.
Possibly he did not think it worth the trouble to call his will into
play. Why should he, after all? As long as he might not live in
Berlin, what did it matter where he lived? and Paris was as good a
place as any other. To have resisted Pilar's persuasions would not
have been an evidence of strength, but simply the obstinacy of a
conceited fool, who wants to prove to himself that he is capable of
setting somebody else at defiance. So that after all he was going to
Paris because he wished it, or rather, because he saw no reason for
not doing so. But as he spun the web of these thoughts in his mind,
he heard all the time a still small voice, which contradicted him,
and whispered: "It is not true. You are not your own master; you are
going you know not whither; you are doing you know not what. Two
beautiful eyes are your guiding star, and in following their magic
beckoning your feet may slip at any moment, and you may be hurled
into unknown depths."
Pilar must have divined that Wilhelm's thoughts were enemies to her
peace, and must be dispersed.
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