My health constantly gets worse, for there are cracks in the wall so that smoke penetrates into my room. To-day when I walked in the street the pavement moved under my feet like the deck of a ship swaying up and down. Only with considerable difficulty can I make the ascent to the Garden of the Luxembourg. My appetite grows continually less, and I only eat in order to still the pangs of hunger.
An occurrence which has often happened since my arrival in Paris has caused me to make various reflections. Inside my coat, on the left side, exactly over the heart, there is heard a regular ticking; it reminds me of the ticking noise in walls produced by the insect called, in Sweden, "the carpenter" and also the "death-watch," believed to presage somebody's death. I thought at first it was my watch, but found it was not so, as the ticking continued after I had laid the watch aside. It is not the buckle of my suspenders, nor the lining of my vest. I accept the explanation of the death-watch, as it suits me best.
A few nights ago I had a dream which again aroused my longing to be able to die, by holding out the hope of a better existence, where there is no danger of a relapse into the misery of life. Having gone too far on a projecting ledge bounded by a steep precipice hid in darkness, I fell head foremost in an abyss. But strangely enough I fell upwards instead of downwards. I was closely surrounded by a dazzling halo of light, and I saw——. What I saw gave me two simultaneous ideas, "I am dead, and I am delivered." A feeling of the greatest happiness overcame me, together with the consciousness that the other life was now over. Light, purity, freedom, filled my spirit, and as I cried, "God!" I obtained the certainty that I had won forgiveness, that hell was behind me, and that heaven was open. Since that night I feel still more homeless than before in this world, and like a tired, weary child, I long to be able to "go home" to rest my heavy head on a mother's bosom, to sleep on the lap of a mother, the pure spouse of an infinite God, who calls Himself my Father, and whom I dare not approach.
But this wish is connected with another—to see the Alps, and more especially the Dent du Midi in the Canton Valais. I love this mountain more than the other Alps, without being able to say why. Perhaps it is the remembrance of my residence on the Lake of Geneva, where I wrote Real Utopias, and of the scenery there which reminded me of heaven. There I have spent the most beautiful hours of my life, there have I loved,—loved wife, children, humankind, the universe, God. "I lift up my hands to God's mountain and house."
Paris, October 1897.