VII

enjoyment of full health and vigour⁠—my life which might have been ‘useful,’ etc. , etc. ⁠—morality might reproach me, according to the old routine, for disposing of my life without permission⁠—or whatever its tenet may be. But now, now , when my sentence is out and my days numbered! How can morality have need of my last breaths, and why should I die listening to the consolations offered by the prince, who, without doubt, would not omit to demonstrate that death is actually a benefactor to me? (Christians like him always end up with that⁠—it is their pet theory.) And what do they want with their ridiculous ‘Pavlofsk trees’? To sweeten my last hours? Cannot they understand that the more I forget myself, the more I let myself become attached to these last illusions of life and love, by means of which they try to hide from me Meyer’s wall, and all that is so plainly written on it⁠—the more unhappy they make me? What is the use of all your nature to me⁠—all your parks and trees, your sunsets and sunrises, your blue skies and your self-satisfied faces⁠—when all this wealth of beauty and happiness begins with the fact that it accounts me⁠—only me⁠—one too many! What is the good of all this beauty and glory to me, when every second, every moment, I cannot but be aware that this little fly which buzzes around my head in the sun’s rays⁠—even this little fly is a sharer and participator in all the glory of the universe, and knows its place and is happy in it;⁠—while I⁠—only I, am an outcast, and have been blind to the fact hitherto, thanks to my simplicity! Oh! I know well how the prince and others would like me, instead of indulging in all these wicked words of my own, to sing, to the glory and triumph of morality, that well-known verse of Gilbert’s: