Is there any
justice in that? No, it is not that. There is no self-conscious
thought in the ordering of these things; they happen by chance and by
virtue of necessity.
10 September.
The thought still pursues me that as a rule human tragedy is the
outcome of exceptional events and calamities, and mine comes from a
natural event. Really I do not know which is worst. The natural order
of things seems to me past bearing.
11 September.
I have heard that a man struck by lightning stiffens, but does not
fall down at once. I too keep up, sustained by that thunderbolt that
struck me, but I feel myself falling. As soon as it grows dark in the
evening something strange takes place within me. I feel so oppressed
that it costs me an effort even to sigh; it seems as if the air could
not get to my lungs, and that I breathe with only a part of them.
During the night, and also in the day, a sudden nameless terror seizes
me,--terror of nothing in particular. I feel as if something horrible
was going to happen, something worse than death. Yesterday I put the
question to myself: "What would become of me if, in this foreign town,
I suddenly forgot my name and where I lived, and wandered on and on in
darkness without knowing where I was going?"
These are sick fancies. Besides, in such a case that would happen to
my body which has already happened to my soul; for in a moral sense I
do not know where I dwell,--I walk in darkness, aimlessly, in a kind
of madness.
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