long stillness, raised my head and looked around me. Oh, how still and
sullenly gloomy was everything around me--no, not gloomy even, but
dumb, cold, and menacing at the same time! My heart sank. At that
instant, at that spot, I had a sense of death breathing upon me, I felt
I almost touched its perpetual closeness. If only one sound had
vibrated, one momentary rustle had arisen, in the engulfing stillness
of the pine-forest that hemmed me in on all sides! I let my head sink
again, almost in terror; it was as though I had looked in, where no man
ought to look.... I put my hand over my eyes--and all at once, as
though at some mysterious bidding, I began to remember all my life....

There passed in a flash before me my childhood, noisy and peaceful,
quarrelsome and good-hearted, with hurried joys and swift sorrows; then
my youth rose up, vague, queer, self-conscious, with all its mistakes
and beginnings, with disconnected work, and agitated indolence....
There came back, too, to my memory the comrades who shared those early
aspirations ... then like lightning in the night there came the gleam
of a few bright memories ... then the shadows began to grow and bear
down on me, it was darker and darker about me, more dully and quietly
the monotonous years ran by--and like a stone, dejection sank upon my
heart. I sat without stirring and gazed, gazed with effort and
perplexity, as though I saw all my life before me, as though scales had
fallen from my eyes. Oh, what have I done! my lips involuntarily
murmured in a bitter whisper. O life, life, where, how have you gone
without a trace? How have you slipped through my clenched fingers? Have
you deceived me, or was it that I knew not how to make use of your
gifts? Is it possible? is this fragment, this poor handful of dusty
ashes, all that is left of you? Is this cold, stagnant, unnecessary
something--I, the I of old days? How? The soul was athirst for
happiness so perfect, she rejected with such scorn all that was small,