A sudden fury swept over me—my whole being flamed with wrath. “What!” I cried. “I shall go on in this servitude—in this degradation! I shall go on playing the lackey to the filthy pleasures of men, cringing, crouching before any insult—begging for my bread—begging to keep my miserable self alive! And I shall see one by one my virtues die in me, my powers, my consecrations! I shall sink into a beast of burden, into a clod of the earth, into a tool of men!
“And I, who wrote The Captive—my God, who wrote The Captive! I, who stood upon that height, drank in that glory, sang with those angels and gods! I, who was noble and high-born—pure and undefiled—seer and believer—I! I walked with Truth—and now I am a slave; a whimpering, beaten hound! They have made a eunuch of me, they have cut away my manhood! They have put me with their swine, they have fed me upon husks, they have bid me drink their swill! And I bear it, by God, I bear it! And why?—”
“I bear it that I may live!”
“Come here, come here! Look at this!” The thing seized me by the shoulders and shook me, the thing with the fiery eyes. “Did you mean it, all that you wrote in that book—did you mean it, those vows that you swore in the forest? Were they the truth of your soul as you faced your God—or were they shams that you dallied with to please your vanity? Answer me! Answer!”
I sank down upon the ground as I heard that voice. I was shuddering with fear; and I moaned aloud: “I don't want to die! I want to live, I want to do my work!”—And then I heard the voice say, “You hound!”
And so I shut my hands like a vise; and I panted: “No, no! Come! Take me! I will go!” I think it must have been hours that I lay there, wrestling in horrible agony. I cried again and again: “Yes, yes,—I will do it! I will do it!” I fled on breathlessly, whispering, panting to myself. Before I knew it I was saying part of The Captive—the first fearful lines of the struggle:
Spirit or fiend that led me to this way!