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I sit there on the bench and write 1848 dozens of times; I write this number criss-cross in all possible shapes and wait for a usable idea to occur to me. A swarm of loose thoughts is fluttering about in my head. The mood of the dying day makes me despondent and sentimental. Autumn has arrived and has already begun to put everything into a deep sleep; flies and other insects have suffered their first setback, and up in the trees and down on the ground you can hear the sounds of struggling life, pottering, ceaselessly rustling, labouring not to perish. All crawling things are stirring once more; they stick their yellow heads out of the moss, lift their legs and grope their way with their long feelers, before they suddenly give out, rolling over and turning up their bellies. Every growing thing has received its distinctive mark, a gentle breath of the first frost; the grass stems, stiff and pale, strain upwards towards the sun, and the fallen leaves rustle along the ground with a sound like that of wandering silkworms. It's autumn, the very carnival of transience; the roses have an inflamed flush, their blood-red colour tinged with a wonderfully hectic hue.
I felt I was myself a crawling insect doomed to perish, seized by destruction in the midst of a whole world ready to go to sleep. (en) |
