Friend. I advise you not to talk in this fashion with every one, because if you do you will gain many enemies.
Tristano. What does it matter? Henceforth, neither enemies nor friends can do me much harm.
Friend. Very probably you will be despised as one incapable of comprehending the spirit of modern philosophy, and who cares little for the progress of civilisation and the sciences.
Tristano. I should be very sorry for that; but what can I do? If I am despised, I will endeavour to console myself.
Friend. But have you, or have you not, changed your opinions? And what is to be done about your book?
Tristano. It would be best to burn it. If it be not burnt, it may be preserved as a book full of poetic dreams, inventions, and melancholy caprices; or better, as an expression of the unhappiness of the writer. Because, I will tell you in confidence, my dear friend, that I believe you and every one else to be happy. As for myself, however, with your permission, and that of the century, I am very unhappy, and all the journals of both worlds cannot persuade me to the contrary.
Friend. I do not know the cause of this unhappiness of which you speak. But a man is the best judge of his own happiness or unhappiness, and his opinion cannot be wrong.
Tristano. Very true. And more, I tell you frankly that I do not submit to my unhappiness, nor bow the head, and come to terms with Destiny, like other men. I ardently wish for death above everything, with such warmth and sincerity as I firmly believe few have desired it.
I would not speak to you thus, if I were not sure that when the time came I should not belie my words. I may add that although I do not yet foresee the end of my life, I have an inward feeling that almost assures me the hour of which I speak is not far distant. I am more than ripe for death, and it seems to me too absurd and improbable, that being dead spiritually, as I am, and the tale of my life being told in every part, I should linger out the forty or fifty years with which Nature threatens me. I am terrified at the mere thought of such a thing. But, like all evils that exceed the power of imagination, this seems to me a dream and illusion, devoid of truth. So that if any one speaks to me about the distant future, as though I were to have a part in it, I cannot help smiling to myself, so sure am I that I have not long to live. This thought, I may say, alone supports me. Books and studies, which I often wonder I ever loved, great designs, and hopes of glory and immortality, are things now undeserving of even a smile. Nor do I now laugh at the projects and hopes of this century. I cordially wish them every possible success, and I praise, admire, and sincerely honour their good intentions. But I do not envy posterity, nor those who have still a long life before them. Formerly I used to envy fools, imbeciles, and people with a high opinion of themselves, and I would willingly have changed my lot with any one of them. Now, I envy neither fools, nor the wise, the great, the small, the weak, the powerful. I envy the dead, and with them alone would I exchange my lot. Every pleasurable fancy, every thought of the future that comes to me in my solitude, and with which I pass away the time, is allied with the thought of death, from which it is inseparable. And in this longing, neither the remembrance of my childish dreams, nor the thought of having lived in vain, disturbs me any more as formerly. When death comes to me, I shall die as peacefully and contentedly as if it were the only thing for which I had ever wished in the world. This is the sole prospect that reconciles me to Destiny.
If, on the one hand, I were offered the fortune and fame of Cæsar or Alexander, free from the least stain; and, on the other hand, death to-day, I should unhesitatingly choose to die to-day.