lm Helfen, you are not wanted. On the other side this life is a
nothingness so large that you will be as nothing in it. Launch yourself
into it. The story that suicide is wrong and immoral is, like other
things, to be taken with reservation. There is no absolute right and
wrong. Suicide is sometimes the highest form of right and reason."

This mood was strong upon me on that particular day, and as I paced
along the Schadowstrasse toward the Wehrhahn, where my lodging was, the
very stones seemed to cry out, "The world is weary, and you are not
wanted in it."

A heavy, cold, beating rain began to fall. I entered the room which
served me as living- and sleeping-room. From habit I ate and drank
at the same restauration as that frequented by my _confreres_ of the
orchestra. I leaned my elbows upon the table, and listened drearily to
the beat of the rain upon the pane. Scattered sheets of music
containing, some great, others little thoughts, lay around me. Lately
it seemed as if the flavor was gone from them. The other night Beethoven
himself had failed to move me, and I accepted it as a sign that all
was over with me. In an hour it would be time to go out and seek dinner,
if I made up my mind to have any dinner. Then there would be the
afternoon--the dreary, wet afternoon, the tramp through the soaking
streets, with the lamp-light shining into the pools of water, to
the theater; the lights, the people, the weary round of painted
ballet-girls, and accustomed voices and faces of audience and
performers. The same number of bars to play, the same to leave unplayed;
the whole dreary story, gone through so often before, to be gone through
so often again.

The restauration did not see me that day; I remained in the house. There
was to be a great concert in the course of a week or two; the "Tower of
Babel" was to be given at it. I had the music. I practiced my part, and
I remember being a little touched with the exquisite loveliness of one
of the choruses, that sung by the "Children of Japhet" as they wander
sadly away with their punishment upon them into the _Waldeinsamkeit_
(that lovely and untranslatable word) one of the purest and most
pathetic melodies ever composed.

It was dark that afternoon. I had not stirred from my hole since coming
in from the probe--had neither eaten nor drunk, and was in full
possession of the uninterrupted solitude coveted by busy men. Once I
thought that it would have been pleasant if some one ha