Wearing a henna-dyed beard and a skullcap on his head and uttering holy words, he looked at me shrewdly, as if he were a physiognomist or could read my thoughts and said, “We don’t have change.”
I took out a two-rial coin to give him. He said, “No, we don’t sell it at all.” I asked why and he said, “You’re young and ignorant. You might suddenly decide to eat the opium, God forbid.” I didn’t insist.
No, no one decides to commit suicide. Suicide is with some people. It’s in their very nature. Yes, everyone’s fate is written on his forehead; some people are born with suicide. I always mocked life, the world and its peoples all seemed like a game, a humiliation, something empty and meaningless. I wanted to sleep a dreamless sleep and not wake up again. But since people see suicide as a strange thing, I wanted to make myself ill, to become worn out and weak, and when everyone thought I was really sick, to eat the opium, so that people would say, “He fell ill and died.”
* * *
I am writing in bed. It’s three in the afternoon. Two people came to see me. They just left. I’m alone. My head is spinning, my body is comfortable and calm. There’s a cup of milk and tea in my stomach. My body is loose, feeble, and feverish. I remembered a pretty tune I heard once on a record. I want to whistle it but I can’t. I wished I could hear that record again. Right now I neither like life nor dislike it. I am alive but without will or desire; a superior power is holding me. I have been bound in the prison of life with steel chains. If I were dead they would take me to the Paris mosque. I would fall into the hands of those damn Arabs and I would die again. I am sick and tired of them. In any case it wouldn’t make any difference to me. If they threw me into a sewer after I died it would be the same for me, I would rest easy. Only my family would cry and weep. They would bring my picture, praise me, all of the usual rot. All of this seems foolish and futile to me. Probably a few people would praise me, a few would criticize, but finally I would be forgotten. I am basically selfish and without charm.
The more I think about it the more I see that continuing this life is futile. I am a germ in the body of society, a harmful being, a burden on others. Sometimes my madness breaks out again. I want to go away, far away, to a place where I could forget myself, to go very far, for example go to Siberia, in wooden houses, under pine trees, with grey skies, snow, lots of snow, among the Mujiks, go and start my life over again. Or, for example, go to India, under the shining sun, in the dense forests, among strange people; go somewhere where no one knows me, nobody knows my language. I want to feel everything within myself. But I see I wasn’t made for this. No, I’m lazy and good for nothing. I was born by mistake. I’m untouchable, driven from pillar to post. I have closed my eyes to all my plans, to love, to delight. I put everything aside. From now on I may be considered among the dead.
Sometimes I make big plans, I see myself worthy of every job and every thing. I say to myself, “Yes, only people who have washed their hands of life and have been disappointed in everything can accomplish great things.” Then I say to myself, “What’s the use? What purpose would it serve? Madness, everything is madness. No, do away with yourself, and leave your corpse to rot. Get lost, you weren’t made for life. Leave off being philosophical, your existence has no value, you can’t do anything.” But I don’t know why death was coy. Why didn’t it come? Why couldn’t I succeed with my plan and become comfortable? I had tortured myself for a week and this was the return I got! Poison didn’t affect me. It’s unbelievable; I can’t believe it. I didn’t eat, I tried to get pneumonia, I drank vinegar. Every night I thought I had come down with a severe case of tuberculosis, but in the morning when I got up my health was better than the day before. Who can I tell this to? I didn’t even get a fever. But I haven’t dreamt, nor have I taken narcotics. I remember everything well. No, it’s unbelievable.
Now that I’ve written this down I am feeling a little better. It consoles me. It’s as if a heavy burden has been lifted from my shoulders. How good it would be if everything could be written. If I could have made others understand my thoughts I would. No, there are feelings, there are things, which can’t be conveyed to others, which can’t be told, people would mock you. Everybody judges other people on the basis of his own values. Language, like man himself, is imperfect and incapable.
I’m invincible. Poison didn’t affect me. I ate opium to no effect. Yes, I’ve become invincible. No other poison will affect me. Finally I realized that all my life was wasted. It was the night before last – I decided that before this mockery started to arouse suspicion, I would end it. I went and took out the capsules of opium from the drawer of the small table. There were three, approximately the size of an ordinary stick of opium all together. I picked them up. It was seven o’clock. I asked for tea from downstairs. They brought it and I drank it down. By eight, no one had come to see me. I closed the door from inside. I went and stood in front of the picture that was on the wall. I looked at it. I don’t know what occurred to me, but in my eyes he was a stranger. I said to myself, “What relationship does this person have with me?” But I know that face. I had seen it a lot. Then I came back. I felt neither frenzy, nor fear, nor happiness. All the things I had done and the things I wanted to do and everything seemed to me to be useless and empty. Life seemed completely ridiculous. I looked around the room. Everything was in its place. I went in front of the cupboard mirror and looked at my flushed face. I half closed my eyes, opened my mouth a little bit and held my head bent like a dead man’s. I said to myself, “Tomorrow morning I’ll look like this. First, no matter how much they knock no one will answer. Till noon they’ll think I’m sleeping. Then they’ll break the lock, enter the room, and see me like this.” All of these thoughts passed like lightning through my mind. I picked up a glass of water. Coolly I told myself it was an aspirin, and swallowed the first capsule. The second and third also I swallowed hastily one after another. I felt a slight trembling inside me. My mouth smelled like opium. My heart beat a little faster. I threw the half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray. I took a scented wafer from my pocket and sucked it. I looked at myself once more in the mirror. I looked around the room – everything was in its place. I told myself that now everything was over. Tomorrow even Plato couldn’t bring me back to life. I straightened the clothes on the chair by the bed. I pulled the quilt over myself. It had absorbed the smell of eau de cologne. I switched off the light and the room darkened. Part of the wall and the foot of the bed were slightly lit by the weak glow that came from the window. I had nothing else to do. Good or bad, I had brought things to this point. I lay down. I turned. I was fearful that someone might come to see how I was and be insistent. However, I had told everyone that I hadn’t been able to sleep for several nights, so that they would leave me alone. I was very curious at that time, as if an important event had taken place or I was going to go on an exciting trip. I wanted to feel death well. I had concentrated my senses, yet I was listening for sounds outside. As soon as a footstep came, my heart would cave in. I pressed my eyelids together. Ten minutes or so went by. Nothing happened. I had occupied myself with different thoughts till I felt the pills begin to work, but I didn’t regret this decision of mine, nor was I afraid. First I became heavy. I felt tired. This feeling was more in the pit of my stomach, like when food isn’t well digested. Then this feeling travelled to my chest and then to my head. I moved my hands. I became thirsty. My mouth had turned dry. I swallowed with difficulty. My heartbeat slowed. A short time passed. I felt that warm, pleasant air was being given off from my body, more from the extremities like the fingertips, the tip of the nose, and so on… At the same time I knew that I wanted to kill myself. I realized that this news would be unpleasant for some people. Everything seemed amazing. All of this seemed childish, absurd, and laughable to me. I thought to myself that now I was comfortable and I would die easily. What did it matter whether others would be sad or not, would cry or not? I greatly desired that this should happen and I feared lest I
should move or think in such a way that I would prevent the opium from working. My only fear was that after all this trouble I might remain alive. I feared that dying might be difficult and that in despair I might cry out or want someone to help me. But I said that no matter how hard it was, opium puts one to sleep and he feels nothing. Sleep – I would sleep and I wouldn’t be able to move from my place or say anything, and the door was locked from inside!…
Yes, I remember well. These thoughts came to me. I heard the monotonous sound of the clock. I heard the footsteps of people who were walking in the guesthouse. It seemed as if my sense of hearing had become sharper. I felt that my body was flying. My mouth had become dry. I had a slight headache. I had almost fallen into a faint. My eyes were half open. My breathing was sometimes fast, sometimes slow. From all the pores of my skin this pleasant heat flowed out of my body. It was as if I too were going out after it. I really wanted its intensity to increase. I had plunged into an unspeakable ecstasy. I thought whatever I wanted to. If I moved I felt that it would be a hindrance to the flowing out of this warmth. The more comfortably I lay the better it was. I pulled my right hand out from under me. I rolled over and lay on my back. It was somewhat unpleasant. I returned to the first position, and the effect of the opium became stronger. I wanted to feel death fully. My feelings had grown strong and magnified. I was amazed that I didn’t fall asleep. It was as if all of my existence was leaving my body happily and wholesomely. My heart beat slowly. I breathed slowly. I think two or three hours passed. At this point someone knocked on the door. I realized it was my neighbour, but I didn’t answer him and I didn’t want to move from my place. I opened my eyes and closed them again. I heard the sound of his door opening. He washed his hands and whistled to himself. I heard everything. I tried to think happy, pleasant thoughts. I was thinking of the past year. The day when I was sitting in the boat and they were playing instruments. The waves of the sea, the rocking of the boat, the pretty girl sitting opposite me: I had plunged into my thoughts. I was running after them, as if I had wings and was soaring through space. I had grown so light and nimble that it can’t be explained. The difference of being under the pleasurable influence of opium is as great as the difference between light seen ordinarily or seen through a chandelier or a crystal prism which separates it into different colours. In this state any simple, empty thoughts which come to people become enchanting and dazzling of themselves. Any passing and empty thought appears entrancing and splendid. If a scene or a vista passes through one’s mind, it becomes limitlessly large, space swells, the passing of time is imperceptible.
At this time I felt very happy. My senses undulated above me. But I felt that I wasn’t asleep. The last feeling that I remember of the pleasure and ecstasy of the opium is that my legs had become cold and senseless, my body motionless. I felt that I was going, drifting far away. But as soon as its influence waned, an infinite sorrow gripped me. I felt that my senses were returning. It was very difficult and unpleasant. I was cold. For more than half an hour I trembled violently. I could hear my teeth chattering. Then came fever, burning fever, and sweat poured from my body. My heart laboured, my breathing had become difficult. The first thought that occurred to me was that all my work was undone, and things hadn’t turned out as they should have. I was surprised at my useless endurance. I realized that a dark power and an unspeakable misfortune were fighting me.
With difficulty I sat up partly in the bed. I pressed the light switch. It became light. I don’t know why my hand went towards the small mirror that was on the bedside table. I saw that my face had swollen and had a sallow colouring. Tears fell from my eyes. My heart struggled hard. I told myself that at least my heart was ruined. I turned off the light and fell back in the bed.
No, my heart wasn’t ruined. Today it’s better. A bad product has no buyers. The doctor came to see me. He listened to my heart, took my pulse, looked at my tongue, took my temperature, the same things that doctors do everywhere, as soon as they see a patient. He gave me a mixture of baking powder and quinine. He didn’t understand at all what my pain was! No one can understand my pain! These medicines are laughable. There in rows on the table are seven or eight kinds of medicine. I was laughing to myself. What a theatre this is.
The clock ticks incessantly by my ear. From outside come the sounds of car and bicycle horns, the clang of trains. I look at the wallpaper, the deep purple leaves and white flowers. At intervals on the branches two blackbirds are seated facing one another. My head is empty, my stomach twisting, my body broken. The newspapers which I have thrown on top of the cabinet lie there in odd positions. When I look it suddenly seems as if everything is strange to me. I even seem a stranger to myself. I wonder why I’m still alive. Why do I breathe? Why do I get hungry? Why do I eat? Why do I walk? Why am I here? Who are these people that I see, and what do they want from me?…
Now I know myself well, just the way I am, no more, no less. I can’t do anything. I have fallen on the bed tired and exhausted. My thoughts revolve, whirl, hour by hour. I have become bored in their hopeless circle. My own existence astonishes me. How bitter and frightening it is when someone feels his own existence! When I look in the mirror I laugh at myself. To me my face seems so unknown and strange and laughable…
This thought has occurred to me many times: I’ve become invulnerable. The invincibility that has been described in legends is my tale. It was a miracle. Now I believe all kinds of superstitions and rubbish. Amazing thoughts pass before my eyes. It was a miracle. Now I know that in his endless cruelty, God or some other snake in the grass created two kinds of beings: the fortunate and the unfortunate. He supports the first group, while making the second group increase their torture and oppression by their own hands. Now I believe that a mean, brutal force, an angel of misfortune, is with some people.
* * *
Finally I’ve been left alone. The doctor left just now. I’ve picked up paper and pencil. I want to write. I don’t know what. Either I have nothing to write or I can’t write because there’s so much. This itself is a misfortune. I don’t know. I can’t cry. Maybe if I could it would soothe me a little bit! I can’t. I look like a lunatic. I saw in the mirror that my hair is a mess. My eyes are open and empty. I think my face shouldn’t have looked like this at all. Many people’s faces don’t go with their thoughts. This really irritates me. All I know is that I hate myself. I eat and hate myself, walk and hate myself, think and hate myself. How obstinate. How frightening! No, this was a supernatural power, a loathsome disease. Now I believe these kind of things. Nothing will affect me any more. I took cyanide and it had no effect on me, I ate opium and I’m still alive! If a dragon bites me, the dragon will die! No, no one would believe it. Had these poisons spoilt? Wasn’t the amount sufficient? Was it more than the normal dose? Had I mistaken the amount when I looked in the medical book? Or does my hand turn the poison into antidote? I don’t know. These thoughts have come to me hundreds of times. There’s nothing new in them. I remember I have heard that when a scorpion is surrounded by a ring of fire it stings itself – isn’t there a ring of fire around me?
Outside my window on the black edge of the tin roof, where rainwater has collected, two sparrows are sitting. One of them puts its beak into the water, then lifts its head. The other one, crouching next to it, is pecking at itself. I just moved. Both of them chirped and flew off together. The weather is cloudy. Sometimes the pale sun appears behind a bit of cloud. The tall buildings opposite are all covered with soot, black and sad under the pressure of this heavy, rainy weather. The distant, suffocated sound of the city can be heard.
There in the drawer of my table are the malicious cards with which I told my fortune, those lying cards which fooled me. The funniest thing is that I still tell my fortune with them!
What can be done? Fate is stronger than I am.
It would be good if, with the experience of life that a person has, he could be born again and start his life anew. But
which life? Is it in my hands? What’s the use? A blind and frightening force rules us. There are people whose fate is directed by a sinister star. They break under this burden, and they want to be broken…
I have neither wishes nor grudges left. I have lost whatever in me was human. I let it be lost. In life one must become either an angel, a human being, or an animal. I became none of these. My life was lost forever. I was born selfish, clumsy, and miserable. Now, it is impossible for me to go back and adopt another way. I can’t follow these useless shadows any more, grappling with life, what firm reason and logic do you have? I no longer want to pardon or to be pardoned, to go to the left or to the right. I want to close my eyes to the future and forget the past.
No, I can’t flee from my fate. Aren’t they the truth, these crazy thoughts, these feelings, these passing fancies which come to me? In any case they seem more natural and less artificial than my logical thoughts. I suppose I am free, yet I can’t resist my fate. My reins are in the hands of my fate, fate is what pulls me from one side to another. The meanness, the baseness of life, which can’t be fought against. Stupid life.
Now I am neither living nor sleeping. Nothing pleases me and nothing bothers me. I have become acquainted with death, used to it. It is my only friend. It is the only thing which heartens me. I remember the Montparnasse Cemetery. I don’t envy the dead anymore. I am now counted in their world. I, too, am with them. I am buried alive…
I’m tired. What trash have I written? I say to myself, “Go, lunatic, throw away the paper and the pencil, throw them away. That’s enough rambling. Shut up. Tear it up, lest this rubbish fall into somebody’s hands. How would they judge me? But I wouldn’t be embarrassed, nothing is important to me. I laugh at the world and whatever is in it. However harsh their judgement of me might be, they don’t know that I have already judged myself even harder. They’ll laugh at me; they don’t know that I laugh at them more. I am sick of myself and of everyone who reads this trash.