I live obscurely amid the obscure. I do my best to escape notice, and
have no notoriety whatsoever, not even as an eccentric.

I associate with the doctor and the notary is expected of me, and I
also go to the club. It is known that I have an income and, besides,
earn some money from a small nursery on the outskirts of the town, and
by giving Italian lessons.

The rumors regarding my past have all quieted down, and people have
grown accustomed to my foreign name - Muralto. They see me regularly
taking the same walk along the sea dike to my nursery, and my gray felt
hat and my white coat in summery weather are known as peculiarities of
the town. When you read this, reader, I shall be buried, respectably
and simply, with twelve hired mourners and the coach with black plumes
of the second class, and a wreath from the burgomaster's wife, to whom
I gave lessons; from the notary, who occasionally earned something
through me; and from the orphanage because, as treasurer, I always kept
the accounts in order.

This is as I wish it to be. When you read this my living personality
may no longer stand in your way. My individual being may no longer
engage your attention. I know how this would veil the truth for you.
Never has man accepted new and lucid ideas from a contemporary unless
he were an avowed and venerated prophet, that is to say, a man
corrupted and lost. I will not let myself be corrupted and give myself
up as lost, and yet I know that my thoughts are too great to be
accepted from free conviction without slavishness by my living
fellow-men. Therefore have I peace in this petty world under the heavy
burden of my tremendous life. I did not confer it on myself and I have
no choice. Were I to speak my mind freely and honestly, I should be