In the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed man is king. All those men, you see, are second-rate, because their minds are confined within two boundaries: money and politics. They're boors, with whom it's impossible to talk about anything, anything we care about. Their intelligence has a foundation of sludge, or more precisely, of sewage, like the Seine at Asnieres.
“Ah! it's hard to find a man whose thoughts have depth and breadth, who gives you the feeling of being on the coast breathing in those great sea-breezes. I've known a few such men; they're dead."
He spoke with that kind of melancholy that sometimes falls upon the soul and makes it as resonant as ground that is frozen hard.
“Life is a hill. while you're climbing up, you look towards the summit, and you're happy; but when you reach the summit, suddenly you see the slope down, and the bottom, which is death. It's slow going up, but coming down is quick. At your age you're happy. You hope for so many things, which moreover never happen. At my age you don't hope for anything anymore... except death.When the laughter's over, behind everything lurks death. At your age it has no meaning. At my age it's terrifying.
For fifteen years I've felt it gnawing away at me like some creature. Little by little month by month, hour by hour, I've felt it undermining me like a house that's falling in. It's disfigured me so completely I don't even recognize myself. there's nothing left of me that was the joyful, vigorous young man of thirty. I've seen it blanch my dark hair white, and with such cruel, cunning slowness! It's taken from me my firm skin, my muscles, my teeth, the whole of my former body, leaving me only my despairing soul, which it's coming for next.
Yes, the wretch has worn me down has quietly and horribly, second by second, completed the long destruction of my being. Now I feel myself dying in everything that I do. Every step brings me nearer to it, every movement, every breath hastens its odious task.
You'll find out! If you thought about it for just a few moments, you'd understand. What are you hoping for? Love? A few more kisses, and you'll be impotent. And then what else? Money? To do what with? To buy women? What kind of happiness is that? To overeat, grow obese, and suffer the torments of gout all night long? And what else is there? Fame? What's the point of that when you can no longer reap its rewards in the shape of Love? And after that? Death is always there, at the end.
I myself, now, see it so close to me that I often feel like stretching out my arms and pushing it away. It covers the earth and fills the void. I find it everywhere. Tiny creatures run on the road, falling leaves, a white hair noticed in a friends beard; these things fill my heart with despair and cry out to me: It's here!" For me it spoils everything I do, everything I see, what I eat and what I drink, everything I love, moonlight, sunrise, the open sea, the lovely rivers, and the summer night air, which is so sweet to breathe!"
He was walking along, a little out of breath, dreaming aloud, forgetting , almost, that someone was listening.
He went on: “And no one ever comes back again, ever... Casts of statues can be kept, and molds that go on producing identical objects, but my body, my face, my thoughts, my desires will never return. And yet there'll be millions, billinos of individuals born who will all have, within the space of a few centimetres, a nose, eyes, a forehead, cheeks, and a mouth as I have, and also a soul as I have, without my self ever returning, without anything recognizable as part of me reappearing in those innumerable different beings - different in indefinable ways, yet all approximately similar.
What can we depend on To whom should we cry out in our anguish? What can we believe in? All the religions are stupid, with their puerile morality and selfish, monstrously imbecilic promises.
Only death is certain.”
He stopped, grasped Duroy by his overcoat lapels, and, in a slow voice, said, "Think about all this, young man, think about it for days, for months, and for years, and you'll see life differently. So try to free yourself from everything that confines you, make that supreme effort, while you are still living, to dissociate yourself from your body, your concerns, your thoughts, and all of mankind, and look elsewhere: then you will understand how unimportant are the quarrels of the Romantics and the Naturalists, and the debate on the budget.”
He began to walk again, faster.
“But you'll also feel the terrible anguish of despair. you'll flounder about, bewildered, drowning in uncertainty. You'll call for help in every direction, and no one will answer you. You'll stretch up your arms and cry out to be helped, loved, consoled, saved! And no one will come.
Why do we suffer like this? Probably because we were born to live more in our material bodies and less in our minds; but by dint of thinking, a disproportion has arisen between the state of our overdeveloped intelligence and the immutable conditions of this life. Look at the average man; unless dreadful disasters befall him, he's content, he doesn't suffer from general unhappiness; nor are animals conscious of it.”
He stopped again, thought for a few seconds, then went on, his manner weary and resigned: “As for me, I'm a lost soul. I've neither father or mother, nor brother nor sister, nor wife, nor children, nor God. He added, after a silence: I've nothing but poetry.”
Then, looking up where the pallid face of the full moon was shining, he declaimed:
“In the sombre void, to this dark mystery
Where floats a pallid star, I seek the verbal key.”
“Get married my friend, he continued, “You don't know what it means to live alone, at my age. Nowadays being alone fills me with appalling anguish; being alone at home, by the fire, in the evening. It seems to me then that I'm alone on the earth, dreadfully alone, but surrounded by indeterminate dangers, by unknown, terrible things; and these wall which divides me from my neighbor, whom I don't know, separates me from him by as great a distance as that which separates me from the stars I see through my window. A kind of fever comes over me, a fever of pain and fear, and the silence of the walls terrifies me. It is so profound, so sad, the silence of the room in which I live alone. It isn't just a silence of the body, but a silence of the soul, and, when a piece of furniture creaks, a shiver runs through your whole body, for in that dismal place you expect to hear no sound.”
He fell silent once more, then added: “Forget all this senile rambling, young man, and live the way the young should live; goodbye!”
And he vanished into the darkness of the passage.
Duroy walked on, his heart heavy. He felt as if he had just been shown some pit full of bones, a hole into which he was inevitably destined one day to fall. "My God, it can't be much fun being him! I'm damned if I'd care to have a ring-side seat, to watch what goes on in his head!”
Then, having stopped to give way to a perfumed woman who emerged from a cab and went into her house, he breathed deeply and greedily, inhaling the scent of verbena and iris that wafted on the air. Suddenly, hope and joy set his lungs and heart pounding; and the memory of Clothilde, whom he was to see again the following day, flooded his being from head to foot.
Everything was smiling at him, life was welcoming him warmly. How good it was, to see your hopes fulfilled!
Then he remembered the boss. “A real Jew! And you know, the jews, you'll never change 'em. What a race!” And he quoted some astonishing examples of avarice, of that avarice peculiar to the children of Israel, savings of ten centimes, haggling worthy of a cook, shamefully small discounts asked for and receiving all their money-lending, pawn-broking spoils.
“And yet he's a good chap who doesn't believe in anything and swindles everybody. His newspaper has something for everyone, as it was founded to further his dealings on the stock market and all his various other enterprises. He's really good at that, and makes millions through companies that haven't a sou of capital ...”
Upon hearing his accountant had paid off a debt he went apoplectic, “Always incur debts: they enable you to negotiate.”
“Ah! it's hard to find a man whose thoughts have depth and breadth, who gives you the feeling of being on the coast breathing in those great sea-breezes. I've known a few such men; they're dead."
He spoke with that kind of melancholy that sometimes falls upon the soul and makes it as resonant as ground that is frozen hard.
“Life is a hill. while you're climbing up, you look towards the summit, and you're happy; but when you reach the summit, suddenly you see the slope down, and the bottom, which is death. It's slow going up, but coming down is quick. At your age you're happy. You hope for so many things, which moreover never happen. At my age you don't hope for anything anymore... except death.When the laughter's over, behind everything lurks death. At your age it has no meaning. At my age it's terrifying.
For fifteen years I've felt it gnawing away at me like some creature. Little by little month by month, hour by hour, I've felt it undermining me like a house that's falling in. It's disfigured me so completely I don't even recognize myself. there's nothing left of me that was the joyful, vigorous young man of thirty. I've seen it blanch my dark hair white, and with such cruel, cunning slowness! It's taken from me my firm skin, my muscles, my teeth, the whole of my former body, leaving me only my despairing soul, which it's coming for next.
Yes, the wretch has worn me down has quietly and horribly, second by second, completed the long destruction of my being. Now I feel myself dying in everything that I do. Every step brings me nearer to it, every movement, every breath hastens its odious task.
You'll find out! If you thought about it for just a few moments, you'd understand. What are you hoping for? Love? A few more kisses, and you'll be impotent. And then what else? Money? To do what with? To buy women? What kind of happiness is that? To overeat, grow obese, and suffer the torments of gout all night long? And what else is there? Fame? What's the point of that when you can no longer reap its rewards in the shape of Love? And after that? Death is always there, at the end.
I myself, now, see it so close to me that I often feel like stretching out my arms and pushing it away. It covers the earth and fills the void. I find it everywhere. Tiny creatures run on the road, falling leaves, a white hair noticed in a friends beard; these things fill my heart with despair and cry out to me: It's here!" For me it spoils everything I do, everything I see, what I eat and what I drink, everything I love, moonlight, sunrise, the open sea, the lovely rivers, and the summer night air, which is so sweet to breathe!"
He was walking along, a little out of breath, dreaming aloud, forgetting , almost, that someone was listening.
He went on: “And no one ever comes back again, ever... Casts of statues can be kept, and molds that go on producing identical objects, but my body, my face, my thoughts, my desires will never return. And yet there'll be millions, billinos of individuals born who will all have, within the space of a few centimetres, a nose, eyes, a forehead, cheeks, and a mouth as I have, and also a soul as I have, without my self ever returning, without anything recognizable as part of me reappearing in those innumerable different beings - different in indefinable ways, yet all approximately similar.
What can we depend on To whom should we cry out in our anguish? What can we believe in? All the religions are stupid, with their puerile morality and selfish, monstrously imbecilic promises.
Only death is certain.”
He stopped, grasped Duroy by his overcoat lapels, and, in a slow voice, said, "Think about all this, young man, think about it for days, for months, and for years, and you'll see life differently. So try to free yourself from everything that confines you, make that supreme effort, while you are still living, to dissociate yourself from your body, your concerns, your thoughts, and all of mankind, and look elsewhere: then you will understand how unimportant are the quarrels of the Romantics and the Naturalists, and the debate on the budget.”
He began to walk again, faster.
“But you'll also feel the terrible anguish of despair. you'll flounder about, bewildered, drowning in uncertainty. You'll call for help in every direction, and no one will answer you. You'll stretch up your arms and cry out to be helped, loved, consoled, saved! And no one will come.
Why do we suffer like this? Probably because we were born to live more in our material bodies and less in our minds; but by dint of thinking, a disproportion has arisen between the state of our overdeveloped intelligence and the immutable conditions of this life. Look at the average man; unless dreadful disasters befall him, he's content, he doesn't suffer from general unhappiness; nor are animals conscious of it.”
He stopped again, thought for a few seconds, then went on, his manner weary and resigned: “As for me, I'm a lost soul. I've neither father or mother, nor brother nor sister, nor wife, nor children, nor God. He added, after a silence: I've nothing but poetry.”
Then, looking up where the pallid face of the full moon was shining, he declaimed:
“In the sombre void, to this dark mystery
Where floats a pallid star, I seek the verbal key.”
“Get married my friend, he continued, “You don't know what it means to live alone, at my age. Nowadays being alone fills me with appalling anguish; being alone at home, by the fire, in the evening. It seems to me then that I'm alone on the earth, dreadfully alone, but surrounded by indeterminate dangers, by unknown, terrible things; and these wall which divides me from my neighbor, whom I don't know, separates me from him by as great a distance as that which separates me from the stars I see through my window. A kind of fever comes over me, a fever of pain and fear, and the silence of the walls terrifies me. It is so profound, so sad, the silence of the room in which I live alone. It isn't just a silence of the body, but a silence of the soul, and, when a piece of furniture creaks, a shiver runs through your whole body, for in that dismal place you expect to hear no sound.”
He fell silent once more, then added: “Forget all this senile rambling, young man, and live the way the young should live; goodbye!”
And he vanished into the darkness of the passage.
Duroy walked on, his heart heavy. He felt as if he had just been shown some pit full of bones, a hole into which he was inevitably destined one day to fall. "My God, it can't be much fun being him! I'm damned if I'd care to have a ring-side seat, to watch what goes on in his head!”
Then, having stopped to give way to a perfumed woman who emerged from a cab and went into her house, he breathed deeply and greedily, inhaling the scent of verbena and iris that wafted on the air. Suddenly, hope and joy set his lungs and heart pounding; and the memory of Clothilde, whom he was to see again the following day, flooded his being from head to foot.
Everything was smiling at him, life was welcoming him warmly. How good it was, to see your hopes fulfilled!
Then he remembered the boss. “A real Jew! And you know, the jews, you'll never change 'em. What a race!” And he quoted some astonishing examples of avarice, of that avarice peculiar to the children of Israel, savings of ten centimes, haggling worthy of a cook, shamefully small discounts asked for and receiving all their money-lending, pawn-broking spoils.
“And yet he's a good chap who doesn't believe in anything and swindles everybody. His newspaper has something for everyone, as it was founded to further his dealings on the stock market and all his various other enterprises. He's really good at that, and makes millions through companies that haven't a sou of capital ...”
Upon hearing his accountant had paid off a debt he went apoplectic, “Always incur debts: they enable you to negotiate.”
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