withered
blades of grass. A coarse grey fabric encircles his loins; the wings at
his back, of a dull, dark-blue colour, wave softly and menacingly.

Both youths appeared to be inseparable companions.

Each leaned on the other's shoulder. The soft little hand of the first
rested like a cluster of grapes on the harsh collar-bone of the second;
the slender, bony hand of the second, with its long, thin fingers, lay
outspread, like a serpent, on the womanish breast of the first.

And I heard a voice. This is what it uttered:

"Before thee stand Love and Hunger---own brothers, the two fundamental
bases of everything living.

"Everything which lives moves, for the purpose of obtaining food; and
eats, for the purpose of reproducing itself.

"Love and Hunger have one and the same object; it is necessary that life
should not cease,--one's own life and the life of others are the same
thing, the universal life."

August, 1878.

THE EGOIST

He possessed everything which was requisite to make him the scourge of
his family.

He had been born healthy, he had been born rich--and during the whole
course of his long life he had remained rich and healthy; he had never
committed a single crime; he had never stumbled into any blunder; he had
not made a single slip of the tongue or mistake.

He was irreproachably honest!... And proud in the consciousness of his
honesty, he crushed every one with it: relatives, friends, and
acquaintances.

His honesty was his capital ... and he exacted usurious interest from
it.

Honesty gave him the right to be pitiless and not to do any good deed
which was not prescribed;--and he was pitiless, and he did no good ...
because good except by decree is not good.

He never troubled himself about any one, except his own very exemplary
self, and he was genuinely indignant if others did not take equally
assiduous care of it!

And, at the same time, he did not consider himself an egoist, and
upbraided and persecuted egoists and egoism more than anything
else!--Of course! Egoism in other people interfered with his own.

Not being conscious of a single failing, he did not understand, he did
not permit, a weakness in any one else. Altogether, he did not
understand anybody or anything, for he was completely surrounded by
himself on all sides, above and below, behind and before.

He did not even understand the meaning of forgiveness. He never had had
occasion to forgive himself.... Then how