it is only now, after the lapse of three years, that I have felt that
my knife is sufficiently sharp, so that I can cut what I choose. I
have learned very little that is new. My thoughts are all exactly
the same, but they were duller then, and they all scattered and would
not unite on any thing; there was no edge to them; they would not
concentrate on one point, on the simplest and clearest decision, as
they have now concentrated themselves.



CHAPTER XIII.



I remember that during the entire period of my unsuccessful efforts
at helping the inhabitants of the city, I presented to myself the
aspect of a man who should attempt to drag another man out of a swamp
while he himself was standing on the same unstable ground. Every
attempt of mine had made me conscious of the untrustworthy character
of the soil on which I stood. I felt that I was in the swamp myself,
but this consciousness did not cause me to look more narrowly at my
own feet, in order to learn upon what I was standing; I kept on
seeking some external means, outside myself, of helping the existing
evil.

I then felt that my life was bad, and that it was impossible to live
in that manner. But from the fact that my life was bad, and that it
was impossible to live in that manner, I did not draw the very simple
and clear deduction that it was necessary to amend my life and to
live better, but I knew the terrible deduction that in order to live