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78 THE CONFESSION OF A FOOL
details, I could not help admitting to myself that, at any
rate at times, I was subject to mental delusions.
What was I to do now? Should I communicate with
my friends before the rumour of my attack had reached
the town? But the disgrace and shame of having to
acknowledge that henceforth I was on a level with the
irresponsible ! The thought was unbearable.
Lie, then ! Double without being able to throw the
pursuers off the scent. It Avent against the grain. Tor-
mented by doubts, hesitating between different plans of
escape from this maze, I longed to run away in order to
be spared the terrible questions which awaited me. Like
a wild beast which feels the approach of death, I thought
of hiding myself in the wood to die.
With that idea in my mind, I went slowly through the
narrow streets. I climbed over huge rocks, saturated and
rendered slippery by the autumnal rains, crossed a stubble
field, reached the little house where I once had lived. The
shutters were tightly closed ; the Avild vine which covered
the walls up to the roof was stripped of its leaves, and the
green lattice-work was plainly visible. As I stood again
upon that sacred spot, sacred to my heart because it had
seen the first blossoming of our friendship, the sense of
my loss, which for a time had been forced into the back-
ground, reasserted itself. Leaning against one of the
supports of the wooden balcony, I Avept like a forsaken
child.
I remembered having read in the Thousand and One
Nights that lovers fall ill with unsatisfied longing, and
that their cure depends entirely on the possession of the
beloved one. Snatches of Swedish folk-songs came into
my mind, about young maidens who, in despair of ever
being united to the object of their affections, waste away,
and bid their mothers prepare their deathbeds for them.
I thought of Heine, the old sceptic, who sings of the tribe
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