p!"

"No?" I said, and sprang immediately up, my unfortunate position rising
all at once vividly before my eyes. I must do something; find some way
or another out of it. To look for situations had been of no avail to
me. Even the recommendations I showed had grown a little old, and were
written by people all too little known to be of much use; besides that,
constant refusals all through the summer had somewhat disheartened me.
At all events, my rent was due, and I must raise the wind for that; the
rest would have to wait a little.

Quite involuntarily I had got paper and pencil into my hand again, and
I sat and wrote mechanically the date, 1848, in each corner. If only
now one single effervescing thought would grip me powerfully, and put
words into my mouth. Why, I had known hours when I could write a long
piece, without the least exertion, and turn it off capitally, too.

I am sitting on the seat, and I write, scores of times, 1848. I write
this date criss-cross, in all possible fashions, and wait until a
workable idea shall occur to me. A swarm of loose thoughts flutter
about in my head. The feeling of declining day makes me downcast,
sentimental; autumn is here, and has already begun to hush everything
into sleep and torpor. The flies and insects have received their first
warning. Up in the trees and down in the fields the sounds of
struggling life can be heard rustling, murmuring, restless; labouring
not to perish. The down-trodden existence of the whole insect world is
astir for yet a little while. They poke their yellow heads up from the
turf, lift their legs, feel their way with long feelers and then
collapse suddenly, roll over, and turn their bellies in the air.

Every growing thing has received its peculiar impress: the delicately
blown breath of the first cold. The stubbles straggle wanly sunwards,
and the falling leaves rustle to the earth, with a sound as of errant
silkworms.

It is the reign of Autumn, the height of the Carnival of Decay, the
roses have got inflammation in their blushes, an uncanny hectic tinge,
through their soft damask.

I felt myself like a creeping thing on the verge of destruction,
gripped by ruin in the midst of a whole world ready for lethargic
sleep. I rose, oppressed by weird terrors, and took some furious
strides down the path. "No!" I cried out, clutching both my hands;
"there must be an end to this," and I reseated myself, grasped the
pencil, and set seriously to work at