before....

"Akh!" I think ... "this old woman is my Fate--that Fate which no man
can escape!

"I cannot get away! I cannot get away!--What madness.... I must make an
effort." And I dart to one side, in a different direction.

I advance briskly.... But the light footsteps, as before, rustle behind
me, close, close behind me.... And in front of me again the pit yawns.

Again I turn in another direction.... And again there is the same
rustling behind me, the same menacing spot in front of me.

And no matter in what direction I dart, like a hare pursued ... it is
always the same, the same!

"Stay!" I think.--"I will cheat her! I will not go anywhere at
all!"--and I instantaneously sit down on the ground.

The old woman stands behind me, two paces distant.--I do not hear her,
but I feel that she is there.

And suddenly I behold that spot which had loomed black in the distance,
gliding on, creeping up to me itself!

O God! I glance behind me.... The old woman is looking straight at me,
and her toothless mouth is distorted in a grin....

"Thou canst not escape!"

February, 1878.

THE DOG

There are two of us in the room, my dog and I.... A frightful storm is
raging out of doors.

The dog is sitting in front of me, and gazing straight into my eyes.

And I, also, am looking him straight in the eye.

He seems to be anxious to say something to me. He is dumb, he has no
words, he does not understand himself--but I understand him.

I understand that, at this moment, both in him and in me there dwells
one and the same feeling, that there is no difference whatever between
us. We are exactly alike; in each of us there burns and glows the
selfsame tremulous flame.

Death is swooping down upon us, it is waving its cold, broad wings....

"And this is the end!"

Who shall decide afterward, precisely what sort of flame burned in each
one of us?

No! it is not an animal and a man exchanging glances....

It is two pairs of eyes exactly alike fixed on each other.

And in each of those pairs, in the animal and in the man, one and the
same life is huddling up timorously to the other.

February, 1878.

THE RIVAU

I had a comrade-rival; not in our studies, not in the service or in
love; but our views did not agree on any point, and every time we met,
interminable arguments sprang up.

We argued about art, religion, science, about the life of earth and
matters beyond the grave,--especially life b