Impatience of the Heart

by Stefan Zweig

absurd, is in fact the destiny of some human being, and that even indifference can place you in love’s debt. But whatever you simply hear told, or read in a book, passes you by without leaving much of an impression; it is only from direct experience that the heart is able to learn the true nature of emotion. I first had to experience for myself the predicament into which another person’s hopeless love can pitch one’s conscience before I was able to feel sympathy with both parties – the one that forcibly imposes itself, and the one that with equal force defends itself against such overwhelming intrusion. But how unimaginably greater was the burden of responsibility that had now fallen on me!