“Have you tried?”
“Yes, I have tried.”
He looked at me incredulously and smiled. He smiled!
“You are a coward, old man. You are simply a miserable coward.”
I—a coward! Oh, if that self-satisfied puppy knew what a tempest of rage he had aroused in my soul he would have squealed for fright and would have hidden himself on the bed. I—a coward! The world has crumbled upon my head, but has not crushed me, and out of its terrible fragments I have created a new world, according to my own design and plan; all the evil forces of life—solitude, imprisonment, treachery, and falsehood—all have taken up arms against me, but I have subjected them all to my will. And I who have subjected to myself even my dreams—I am a coward?
But I shall not tire the attention of my indulgent reader with these lyrical deviations, which have no bearing on the matter. I continue.
After a pause, broken only by K.‘s loud breathing, I said to him sadly:
“I—a coward! And you say this to the man who came with the sole aim of helping you? Of helping you not only in word but also in deed?”
“You wish to help me? In what way?”
“I will get you paper and pencil.”