—Why, I would not even know it—I would be out in the mountains alone!
“But for what had you your pride in the morning, and in the evening your submission?”
Can you guess how that jeer rings in my ears, how it goads me?
March 5th.
Sinking down! Sinking down! To see yourself one of the losing creatures, to know that there is no help for you in this world—that no one will heed you, no one will stretch out a hand! To see yourself with every weakness, to see yourself as everything that you hate—to be mad with rage against yourself, and still to be able to do nothing!
—Understand what I mean—poor fools, do not think it is for myself that I fear. If I wanted to fight a way for myself—I could do it yet—never fear. But ah, you will save the mother and not her child! What I weep for, what I die for, is my ART!
My vision, my life, my joy, my fire! These are the things that are dying! And when the soul is dead do you think that I shall care about the body? Do you think that I will stay in this world a shell, a mockery, a corpse? Stay either to putrefy with pleasure or to be embalmed in dulness? Nay, you do not know me!