ly wild fits of merriment--all this gave the young
mathematician a character of extreme unsteadiness, of sad and harsh
discord.

I must also mention the extreme pride, a family trait, which I inherited
from my mother, and which often hindered me from taking the advice of
riper and more experienced people than myself; also my extreme obstinacy
in carrying out my purposes, a good quality in itself, which becomes
dangerous, however, when the purpose in question is not sufficiently
well founded and considered.

Thus, during the first days of my confinement, I behaved like all other
fools who are thrown into prison. I shouted loudly and, of course,
vainly about my innocence; I demanded violently my immediate freedom and
even beat against the door and the walls with my fists. The door and
the walls naturally remained mute, while I caused myself a rather sharp
pain. I remember I even beat my head against the wall, and for hours I
lay unconscious on the stone floor of my cell; and for some time, when I
had grown desperate, I refused food, until the persistent demands of my
organism defeated my obstinacy.

I cursed my judges and threatened them with merciless vengeance. At last
I commenced to regard all human life, the whole world, even Heaven, as
an enormous injustice, a derision and a mockery. Forgetting that in my
position I could hardly be unprejudiced, I came with the self-confidence
of youth, with the sickly pain of a prisoner, gradually to the complete
negation of life and its great meaning.

Those were indeed terrible days and nights, when, crushed by the walls,
getting no answer to any of my questions, I paced my cell endlessly and
hurled one after another into the dark abyss all the great valuables
which life has bestowed upon us: friendship, love, reason and justice.

In some justification to myself I may mention the fact that during
the first and most painful years of my imprisonment a series of events
happened which reflected themselves rather painfully upon my psychic
nature. Thus I learned with the profoundest indignation that the girl,
whose name I shall not mention and who was to become my wife, married
another man. She was one of the few who believed in my innocence; at the
last parting she swore to me to remain faithful to me unto death, and
rather to die than betray her love for me--and within one year after
that she married a man I knew, who possessed certain good qualities, but
who was not at all a sen