Little Poems in Prose

ing damp; one breathes here now the rancid air of desolation. In this world, so narrow, yet so filled with loathing, one single well-known object smiles on me,—the phial of laudanum; and old and terrible mistress; like all mistresses, alas! fer- tile in caresses and in treacheries. Oh yes, Time has reappeared. Time lords it now, and with the ugly oldster has returned all his devilish rout of memories, regrets, spasms, fears, agonies, nightmares, rages, nerve- storms. I swear to you that the seconds now tick off like a mighty and a solemn bell, and each one leaping from the clock cries: “I am Life, Life in- tolerable, Life implacable, Life!” There is only one second in human life whose mission it is to announce good news— the good news which breathes into every heart an inexplicable fear. Yea, Time reigns; he has resumed his brutal dictatorship, and he drives me on, as if I were an ox, with his double goad. On, then, thick- head!—Sweat, slave! live, damnèd wretch!