Part 38 (2/2)

And then I say: ”Fool, to torment yourself with such hopes! Don't you _know_ that he will say what all the rest have said? He is a clever man, and he knows everything; but what use is he going to have for your poetry?”

I wandered about almost all of to-day, or sat stupid in my room. I have lost all my habits of effort--I have forgotten all that I ever knew, all my hopes, all my plans. I said: ”I will study!” But then I added: ”Why should I? Shall I not only make myself miserable, get myself full of emotion, and to no purpose but the carrying of dishes?”

It is terrible to me to have to acknowledge any change in my way of living--I never did that before. Compromises! Concessions!

Surrenders!--words such as those set me mad. But what am I to do? What _can_ I do? I writhe and twist, but there is no escape. I struggle upward, but I am only beaten back and back? How should I not stop striving?

Circ.u.mstances made no difference to a man. So I used to prate!

No difference! Why, I was a giant in my soul, swift and terrible as the lion. I leaped upon my task, I seized upon everything that came my way. I pa.s.sed whole cla.s.ses of men at a bound, I saw, I felt--I bore the world in my soul. I would dare everything, learn everything, live everything--take it all into myself. And every day I was stronger, every day I was more!--

And now see me! You have penned me here, you have starved me, stunted me, crushed me--I sit s.h.i.+vering and staring at my own piteousness! Why, I can not even be angry any more--I am too shrunken, too impotent for that! And was it my fault? Have I not fought till I was ill?

--But never did I put forth a hope that it was not withered in the bud!

My every enthusiasm you stamped into the ground; every advance that I made--why you smote me in the face! And all my ardor, my confidence, my trust--has it ever met with anything but jeers?

--Yes, and now you turn away--this revolts you! This is bare, painful egotism--this is whining--this is querulous misery. It offends you like the sight of raw fles.h.!.+

--It is my raw soul. My poor little naked, pitiful, beaten soul!--groveling, and begging, too!

--But whose fault is it--merciful Heaven, whose fault is it? It is my nature to live in myself--to live from myself. And this that is unbearable egotism, why, it would have been exulting power! Joy in a vision! Mastery of a life and an art!

But here you shut me up! You crush me down! I try to escape--I cry out: ”I am _not_ an egotist--I am a wors.h.i.+per! I want nothing in the world so much as to forget myself--my rights, my claims, my powers, my talents! I want to think of G.o.d! Only give me a chance--only give me a chance to do that, and I care not what you do with me! Here I stand with my poor little work, begging, pleading for some one to heed it! Thinking of it only, living for it only, insisting upon it day and night! But do you think that I do that of choice? My G.o.d, no--you are mad--I only want to go on! Give me but the chance to go on--and do you think that I would care whether any man admired my work?”

--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!

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