Then I travel back, in thought, through the bygone years. I am surely missed at home to-night; and my mother shivers when the wind moans in the chimney, as though those moans were my dying sighs. And she says to the neighbors, "In such a year, when he was with us," or, "I wonder where he is now!"
Ah, I cannot bear this! I wave you a farewell from my soul, dear ones! I am ambitious; I am an ingrate, a bad brother, a bad son! How can I explain it? A supernatural force leads me on, whispering, "Thou shalt be!" The voice of damnation that spoke to me in my very cradle. And what, pray, am I to be, poor wretch that I am?
"Soon we all shall be of those
Who come back—never!"
Ah, I do not want to go! I shall not go! I have struggled too hard to fail. I shall return. I will triumph in life and in death. Is there to be no compensation for the infinite anguish of my soul?
X.
It is very late, and that couplet of the dead still rings in my brain,—
"Christmas comes,
Christmas goes;