Thus I was subjected to a conflict of perceptions, which made me quite irresponsible. I was hurled to and fro by momentary feelings like a football. A single word from the other side would have produced in me such a suggestion that I should have blindly done anything I might have been asked to do.
My state resembled that of those people of whom Blanqui says: “Paris at any moment contains 50,000 men who are ready at a wave of the hand to shed blood for any cause.” It is indifferent to them, he might have added, if it is for the cause of freedom or for the cause of reaction.
This “destroy-everything mood,” which had so long been to me a psychological riddle, I was now able to study in my own person, as the result of an intensified masochistic predisposition.... At the foundation of the whole hermaphroditic state, there lay nothing else than the love of humanity.... An everyday humanity offers us no new sensations.... We are only able to love when it is out of the ordinary.... For this reason, we strive to see mankind in pain and poverty—in order that we may love men more ardently; to love them for that reason, because their misery provides for us intense pain.
For days I wandered about, fighting within myself a frightful spiritual battle.... I felt that the only alternatives were either to bring about a catastrophe or suicide. To wait any longer was beyond my powers. A chance must decide....
A kind of trance state had taken possession of my organism.... I knew nothing rightly: I did not know if everything around me was reality or only a dream!... Yes, I even doubted my own existence!... At no moment did I know where I was, how I had come there, what I had just been doing, what I really was.... I remember only that suddenly I was walking in the street in deep conversation with a man entirely unknown to me.... Our conversation turned round the question, What was going to happen?... Both of us were reserved, both on the watch; each seemed to have the feeling—“He is seeing through me; I must not betray myself!... Perhaps I shall be able to get something out of him!”... Thus, we spoke with the most extreme caution about that which each of us read in the soul of the other....
The passers-by stared at us; possibly we had been speaking rather too loudly. It appeared to me that someone was following us in order to listen to our conversation; we stopped, in order that this person might be compelled to walk past us. It was an impudent lad, in the years between boyhood and manhood; he stopped also, with his hands in his trousers pockets, a few paces distant, and listened to us with interest.... My companion was as much taken aback as I was myself, and we both began to stammer. At the moment a crowd of gapers had collected around us, hoping to hear something of interest. We both became continually more confused; my head began to swim, and I began to say something. It must have been nonsense that I spoke, for my companion looked at me, half astonished and half alarmed, and several persons in the crowd began to titter. This made me suddenly lose my head more even than before, and I began to get angry. Suddenly I shouted out to my companion: “That will have the most frightful results; they have cut off the Tartar’s feet and hands, and now the Tartars will massacre the whole town!”... All those around me began to talk to one another at once. “Cut off feet and hands!”... I had turned the switch and the current had passed....
I do not know how I got home.... My landlady rushed to me with the news: “The Tartars are going to burn the town to ashes, and to murder all the Armenians. Some of them have had their feet and hands cut off; their noses have been slit, their eyes cut out; boiling oil has been poured into their ears.... The people are all running away, or barricading themselves in their houses!”
XIII.
I did not see the beginning of the drama, for immediately after my return home I fell into a death-like slumber, which lasted more than fifty hours. No one could have kept about after such a spiritual storm.... When I awoke, I was so weak that only with labour could I move a few paces; my whole body trembled unceasingly.... I had absolutely no other desire but for repose.... After I had somewhat recovered, I went to sleep again until the next morning.
Now I once more felt comparatively strong, although my arms and legs still trembled. My hostess—a German woman, long ago deserted in this town—gave me an account of the atrocities perpetrated by the Tartars. As I went out, the town seemed to be dead. In the streets there still lay numerous horrible, mutilated corpses; the shops were closed; here and there houses were demolished. As far as I could learn, in Tiflis the Tartars had done even worse.... Here in Baku they had fired the boring-wells of the Armenians; from these the fire had spread to the rest, so that the entire petroleum industry was ruined, and 10,000 men were out of work.