We dream alone, we
suffer alone, we die alone, we inhabit the last resting-place alone. But
there is nothing to prevent us from opening our solitude to God. And so
what was an austere monologue becomes dialogue, reluctance becomes
docility, renunciation passes into peace, and the sense of painful
defeat is lost in the sense of recovered liberty.
"Vouloir ce que Dieu veut est la seule science
Qui nous met en repos."
None of us can escape the play of contrary impulse; but as soon as the
soul has once recognized the order of things and submitted itself
thereto, then all is well.
"Comme un sage mourant puissions nous dire en paix:
J'ai trop longtemps erre, cherche; je me trompais:
Tout est bien, mon Dieu m'enveloppe."
January 28, 1881.--A terrible night. For three or four hours I struggled
against suffocation and looked death in the face.... It is clear that
what awaits me is suffocation--asphyxia. I shall die by choking.
I should not have chosen such a death; but when there is no option, one
must simply resign one's self, and at once.... Spinoza expired in the
presence of the doctor whom he had sent for. I must familiarize myself
with the idea of dying unexpectedly, some fine night, strangled by
laryngitis. The last sigh of a patriarch surrounded by his kneeling
family is more beautiful: my fate indeed lacks beauty, grandeur, poetry;
but stoicism consists in renunciation.
Pages:
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649