Nothing of what man can know, to this end, could be evaded without degradation, without sin, - is it no burden to bear the repellent scars of abandon, of election? It leaves but a state of supplication and deserted expanses, an absorption into despair. The existence of things cannot enclose the death which it brings to me; the existence is itself projected into my death, and it is my death which encloses it. Am I deranged? Over and above quietism! Nurtured by the multitude of man's misfortunes, a thousand halos like torches in the night of the spirit, a thousand traps, pitfalls of brimstone and the empty sky, prostrated face against the earth in frantic laughter...
I was beyond withstanding my own ignominy. I invoked it and blessed it. I progressed even further into vileness and degradation. Am I resurging, intact, out of infamy?
