Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Part I - I
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Denna sida har korrekturlästs minst en gång.
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(historik)
with naturalists, poets and historians dwelt in peace side
by side. It reminded one of a geological stratum of
unfathomable depth where, as in a puddingstone, layer
was piled upon layer, marking the successive stages
arrived at by human folly or human genius.
I can see myself now. I had climbed on to the
encircling gallery, and was engaged in arranging a collection
of old books which a well-known collector had just
presented to the library. He had been clever enough to
ensure his own immortality by endowing each volume
with his ex-libris bearing the motto “Speravit infestis.”
Since I was as superstitious as an atheist, this motto,
meeting my gaze day after day whenever I happened to
open a volume, had made an undeniable impression on
me. He was a lucky fellow, this brave man, for even in
misfortune he never abandoned hope.... But for me
all hope was dead. There seemed to be no chance
whatever that my drama in five acts, or six tableaux, with
three transformation scenes on the open stage, would ever
see the footlights. Seven men stood between me and
promotion to the post of a librarian—seven men, all in
perfect health, and four with a private income. A man
of twenty-six, in receipt of a monthly salary of twenty
crowns, with a drama in five acts stowed away in a drawer
in his attic, is only too much inclined to embrace
pessimism, this apotheosis of scepticism, so comforting to all
failures. It compensates them for unobtainable dinners,
enables them to draw admirable conclusions, which often
have to make up for the loss of an overcoat, pledged
before the end of the winter.
Notwithstanding the fact that I was a member of a
learned Bohemia, which had succeeded an older, artistic
Bohemia, a contributor to important newspapers and
excellent, but badly paying magazines, a partner in a
society founded for the purpose of translating Hartmann’s
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