I do.

Sometimes I stand for hours and peer at my face and wonder at it.
At times I turn it upside down and gaze intently at it. I try to
think what it means. It seems to look back at me with its great
brown eyes as if it knew me and wanted to speak to me.

Why was I born?

I do not know.

I ask my face a thousand times a day and find no answer.

At times when people pass my room--my maid Nitnitzka, or Jakub,
the serving-man--and see me talking to my face, they think I am
foolish.

But I am not.

At times I cast myself on the sofa and bury my head in the cushions.
Even then I cannot find out why I was born.

I am seventeen.

Shall I ever be seventy-seven? Ah!

Shall I ever be even sixty-seven, or sixty-seven even? Oh!

And if I am both of these, shall I ever be eighty-seven?