insfolk and acquaintance than I had ever been; I
was loaded with praise by strangers; and without exaggeration I could
believe my name already famous. Moreover I was neither insane nor ill.
On the contrary, I possessed a physical and mental strength which I
have rarely met in persons of my age. I could mow as well as the
peasants, I could work with my brain eight hours uninterruptedly and
feel no bad effects.

"And yet I could give no reasonable meaning to any actions of my life.
And I was surprised that I had not understood this from the very
beginning. My state of mind was as if some wicked and stupid jest was
being played upon me by some one. One can live only so long as one is
intoxicated, drunk with life; but when one grows sober one cannot fail
to see that it is all a stupid cheat.

What is truest about it is that there is nothing even funny or silly in
it; it is cruel and stupid, purely and simply.

"The oriental fable of the traveler surprised in the desert by a wild
beast is very old.

"Seeking to save himself from the fierce animal, the traveler jumps
into a well with no water in it; but at the bottom of this well he sees
a dragon waiting with open mouth to devour him. And the unhappy man,
not daring to go out lest he should be the prey of the beast, not
daring to jump to the bottom lest he should be devoured by the dragon,
clings to the branches of a wild bush which grows out of one of the
cracks of the well. His hands weaken, and he feels that he must soon
give way to certain fate; but still he clings, and see two mice, one
white, the other black, evenly moving round the bush to which he hangs,
and gnawing off its roots

"The traveler sees this and knows that he must inevitably perish; but
while thus hanging he looks about him and finds on the leaves of the
bush some drops of honey. These he reaches with his tongue and licks
them off with rapture.

"Thus I hang upon the boughs of life, knowing that the inevitable
dragon of death is waiting ready to tear me, and I cannot comprehend
why I am thus made a martyr. I try to suck the honey which formerly
consoled me; but the honey pleases me no longer, and day and night the
white mouse and the black mouse gnaw the branch to which I cling. I
can see but one thing: the inevitable dragon and the mice--I cannot
turn my gaze away from them.

"This is no fable, but the literal incontestable truth which every one
may understand. What will be the outcome