.. They seem to me like
wreaths thrown into a grave.
Mentally I say farewell to all the distant friends whom I shall never
see again.
February 18, 1881.--Misty weather. A fairly good night. Still, the
emaciation goes on. That is to say, the vulture allows me some respite,
but he still hovers over his prey. The possibility of resuming my
official work seems like a dream to me.
Although just now the sense of ghostly remoteness from life which I so
often have is absent, I feel myself a prisoner for good, a hopeless
invalid. This vague intermediate state, which is neither death nor life,
has its sweetness, because if it implies renunciation, still it allows
of thought. It is a reverie without pain, peaceful and meditative.
Surrounded with affection and with books, I float down the stream of
time, as once I glided over the Dutch canals, smoothly and noiselessly.
It is as though I were once more on board the _Treckschute_. Scarcely
can one hear even the soft ripple of the water furrowed by the barge, or
the hoof of the towing horse trotting along the sandy path. A journey
under these conditions has something fantastic in it. One is not sure
whether one still exists, still belongs to earth. It is like the
_manes_, the shadows, flitting through the twilight of the _inania
regna_.
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