These he reaches with his
tongue and licks them off with rapture.
"Thus I hang upon the boughs of life, knowing that the inevitable
dragon of death is waiting ready to tear me, and I cannot
comprehend why I am thus made a martyr. I try to suck the honey
which formerly consoled me; but the honey pleases me no longer,
and day and night the white mouse and the black mouse gnaw the
branch to which I cling. I can see but one thing: the
inevitable dragon and the mice--I cannot turn my gaze away from
them.
"This is no fable, but the literal incontestable truth which
every one may understand. What will be the outcome of what I do
to-day? Of what I shall do to-morrow? What will be the outcome
of all my life? Why should I live? Why should I do anything?
Is there in life any purpose which the inevitable death which
awaits me does not undo and destroy?
"These questions are the simplest in the world. From the stupid
child to the wisest old man, they are in the soul of every human
being. Without an answer to them, it is impossible, as I
experienced, for life to go on.
"'But perhaps,' I often said to myself, 'there may be something
I have failed to notice or to comprehend.
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