Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Part I - VI
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THE CONFESSION OF A FOOL 77
when it suits me. I was walking along the road leading
to the hotel without having heard or seen anything hurtful
to my vanity ; neither a glance from the pilots, betraying
that they guessed my secret, nor a disparaging remark
from the man who was carrying ray luggage.
Arrived at the hotel, I asked for a room, ordered an
absinthe, lighted a cigar and began to reflect.
"Had I gone mad? Was I in such imminent peril of
insanity that an immediate landing had been necessary?
"
In ni}’ present state of mind I was incapable of forming
an opinion, for a madman, according to the verdict of the
doctors, is not conscious of his mental disorder, and the
association of his ideas proves nothing against their irregu-
larity. Like a scientist, I examined similar occurrences
which had happened to me before.
When I was still a boy at college, my nervous excita-
bility, exaggerated by exasperating events, passion, the
suicide of a friend, distrust of the future, had been in-
creased to such an extent that everything filled me with
apprehension, even in broad daylight. I was afraid to
stay in a room by myself ; I was haunted by my own
spectre, and my friends took it in turns to spend the night
with me, Avhile the candles burned and the fire crackled
in the stove.
Another time, in an attack of wild despair, following on
all sorts of misfortunes, I ran across country, wandered
through the woods, and at last climbed to the top of a
pine tree. There I sat astride on a branch and made a
speech to the Scotch firs which spread out their branches
below me, endeavouring to drown their voices, imagining
that I was a speaker addressing an assembled crowd. It
was not so very far from here, on an island where I had
spent many summers, and the headland of which was
plainly visible from where I stood.
Remembering that incident, with all its ridiculous
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