hich to travel. I wanted, first of all,
concealment; and one is best concealed among so called honest people. I
came to Nice, where I was a gardener. All my senses were paralyzed. I
seemed to myself a corpse, and as if I with my thoughts were only the
companion of this corpse. Here I and the gardener became one again; the
odor of the moist earth was the first thing that, for a long time, had
given me any pleasure, no, that made me feel I was alive. Chemistry can
imitate every thing; but the fragrance that rises out of the fresh
earth no perfume ever possessed. Herr Dournay surprised me on the first
hour of his arrival, just as I was digging in the fresh mould. It gave
me strength. The masquerade pleased me; I had good sleep, a good
appetite. The gardener's daughter wanted to marry me. I had again a
reason for flight. I had laid away a good sum of money; now I dug it
up. I began a new life of pleasure at Naples. I confess I was proud of
assuming all sorts of transformations: I was entirely afloat, in good
health and good spirits. I had a good circulation, and social talent:
the world was mine. I had friends wherever I went: how long were they
my friends? Perhaps only so long as I stuck fast to my money. That was
a matter of indifference to me. I desired no loyalty, for I gave none.
I was always thankful to my parents for one thing; they had given me an
indestructible constitution. I had a body of steel, a heart of marble,
and unshakable nerves; I knew no sickness and no pity. I have
experienced many provocations to pity"--

He paused. It was the only time during his whole speech that he smiled;
and a peculiar smack of satisfaction proceeded from him.

Then he continued:--

"A strange trait of sentimentalism stuck fast to me, however. It was at
Naples, on a wonderfully beautiful evening, we were sailing in a
miscellaneous and merry party on the sea, and I was the merriest of the
whole. We disembarked. Who can tell what transpires in a human being?
At this time, there, under the bright Italian sky, in the midst of
laughing, singing, jesting men and women, the thought darted through my
mind: What hast thou in the wide world? Nothing. Yet there is one
thing: yonder in Poland thy mother's grave. And out of laughing, wanton
Italy, I travelled without halt through the different countries, saw
nothing, journeying on and on towards dreary, dirty Poland. I came to
the village that I had not seen since my sixteenth year. And such