My life came to a standstill. I could breathe, eat, drink,

and sleep, and I could not help doing these things; but there was

no life, for there were no wishes the fulfillment of which I could

consider reasonable. If I desired anything, I knew in advance that

whether I satisfied my desire or not, nothing would come of it.

Had a fairy come and offered to fulfil my desires I should not have

know what to ask. If in moments of intoxication I felt something

which, though not a wish, was a habit left by former wishes, in

sober moments I knew this to be a delusion and that there was

really nothing to wish for. I could not even wish to know the

truth, for I guessed of what it consisted. The truth was that life

is meaningless. I had as it were lived, lived, and walked, walked,

till I had come to a precipice and saw clearly that there was

nothing ahead of me but destruction. It was impossible to stop,

impossible to go back, and impossible to close my eyes or avoid

seeing that there was nothing ahead but suffering and real death —

complete annihilation.

It had come to this, that I, a healthy, fortunate man, felt I

could no longer live: some irresistible power impelled me to rid

myself one way or other of life. I cannot say I wished to kill

myself. The power which drew me away from life was stronger,

fuller, and more widespread than any mere wish. It was a force

similar to the former striving to live, only in a contrary

direction. All my strength drew me away from life. The thought of

self-destruction now came to me as naturally as thoughts of how to

improve my life had come formerly. and it was seductive that I had

to be cunning with myself lest I should carry it out too hastily.

I did not wish to hurry, because I wanted to use all efforts to

disentangle the matter. “If I cannot unravel matters, there will

always be time.” and it was then that I, a man favoured by

fortune, hid a cord from myself lest I should hang myself from the

crosspiece of the partition in my room where I undressed alone

every evening, and I ceased to go out shooting with a gun lest I

should be tempted by so easy a way of ending my life. I did not

myself know what I wanted: I feared life, desired to escape from

it, yet still hoped something of it.

And all this befell me at a time when all around me I had what

is considered complete good fortune. I was not yet fifty; I had a

good wife who lived me and whom I loved, good children, and a large

estate which without much effort on my part improved and increased.

I was respected by my relations and acquaintances more than at any

previous time. I was praised by others and without much self-

deception could consider that my name was famous. And far from

being insane or mentally diseased, I enjoyed on the contrary a

strength of mind and body such as I have seldom met with among men

of my kind; physically I could keep up with the peasants at mowing,

and mentally I could work for eight and ten hours at a stretch

without experiencing any ill results from such exertion. And in

this situation I came to this — that I could not live, and,

fearing death, had to employ cunning with myself to avoid taking my

own life.

My mental condition presented itself to me in this way: my

life is a stupid and spiteful joke someone has played on me.

Though I did not acknowledge a “someone” who created me, yet such

a presentation — that someone had played an evil and stupid joke

on my by placing me in the world — was the form of expression that

suggested itself most naturally to me.

Involuntarily it appeared to me that there, somewhere, was

someone who amused himself by watching how I lived for thirty or

forty years: learning, developing, maturing in body and mind, and

how, having with matured mental powers reached the summit of life

from which it all lay before me, I stood on that summit — like an

arch-fool — seeing clearly that there is nothing in life, and that

there has been and will be nothing. And he was amused. …

But whether that “someone” laughing at me existed or not, I

was none the better off. I could give no reasonable meaning to any

single action or to my whole life. I was only surprised that I

could have avoided understanding this from the very beginning — it

has been so long known to all. Today or tomorrow sickness and

death will come (they had come already) to those I love or to me;

nothing will remain but stench and worms. Sooner or later my

affairs, whatever they may be, will be forgotten, and I shall not

exist. Then why go on making any effort? … How can man fail to

see this? And how go on living? That is what is surprising! One

can only live while one is intoxicated with life; as soon as one is

sober it is impossible not to see that it is all a mere fraud and

a stupid fraud! That is precisely what it is: there is nothing

either amusing or witty about it, it is simply cruel and stupid.

There is an Eastern fable, told long ago, of a traveller

overtaken on a plain by an enraged beast. Escaping from the beast

he gets into a dry well, but sees at the bottom of the well a

dragon that has opened its jaws to swallow him. And the

unfortunate man, not daring to climb out lest he should be

destroyed by the enraged beast, and not daring to leap to the

bottom of the well lest he should be eaten by the dragon, seizes s

twig growing in a crack in the well and clings to it. His hands

are growing weaker and he feels he will soon have to resign himself

to the destruction that awaits him above or below, but still he

clings on. Then he sees that two mice, a black one and a white

one, go regularly round and round the stem of the twig to which he

is clinging and gnaw at it. And soon the twig itself will snap and

he will fall into the dragon’s jaws. The traveller sees this and

knows that he will inevitably perish; but while still hanging he

looks around, sees some drops of honey on the leaves of the twig,

reaches them with his tongue and licks them. So I too clung to the

twig of life, knowing that the dragon of death was inevitably

awaiting me, ready to tear me to pieces; and I could not understand

why I had fallen into such torment. I tried to lick the honey

which formerly consoled me, but the honey no longer gave me

pleasure, and the white and black mice of day and night gnawed at

the branch by which I hung. I saw the dragon clearly and the honey

no longer tasted sweet. I only saw the unescapable dragon and the

mice, and I could not tear my gaze from them. and this is not a

fable but the real unanswerable truth intelligible to all.

The deception of the joys of life which formerly allayed my

terror of the dragon now no longer deceived me. No matter how

often I may be told, “You cannot understand the meaning of life so

do not think about it, but live,” I can no longer do it: I have

already done it too long. I cannot now help seeing day and night

going round and bringing me to death. That is all I see, for that

alone is true. All else is false.

The two drops of honey which diverted my eyes from the cruel

truth longer than the rest: my love of family, and of writing —

art as I called it — were no longer sweet to me.

“Family”…said I to myself. But my family — wife and

children — are also human. They are placed just as I am: they

must either live in a lie or see the terrible truth. Why should

they live? Why should I love them, guard them, bring them up, or

watch them? That they may come to the despair that I feel, or else

be stupid? Loving them, I cannot hide the truth from them: each

step in knowledge leads them to the truth. And the truth is death.

“Art, poetry?”…Under the influence of success and the praise

of men, I had long assured myself that this was a thing one could

do though death was drawing near — death which destroys all

things, including my work and its remembrance; but soon I saw that

that too was a fraud. It was plain to me that art is an adornment

of life, an allurement to life. But life had lost its attraction

for me, so how could I attract others? As long as I was not living

my own life but was borne on the waves of some other life — as

long as I believed that life had a meaning, though one I could not

express — the reflection of life in poetry and art of all kinds

afforded me pleasure: it was pleasant to look at life in the

mirror of art. But when I began to seek the meaning of life and

felt the necessity of living my own life, that mirror became for me

unnecessary, superfluous, ridiculous, or painful. I could no

longer soothe myself with what I now saw in the mirror, namely,

that my position was stupid and desperate. It was all very well to

enjoy the sight when in the depth of my soul I believed that my

life had a meaning. Then the play of lights — comic, tragic,

touching, beautiful, and terrible — in life amused me. No

sweetness of honey could be sweet to me when I saw the dragon and

saw the mice gnawing away my support.

Nor was that all. Had I simply understood that life had no

meaning I could have borne it quietly, knowing that that was my

lot. But I could not satisfy myself with that. Had I been like a

man living in a wood from which he knows there is no exit, I could

have lived; but I was like one lost in a wood who, horrified at

having lost his way, rushes about wishing to find the road. He

knows that each step he takes confuses him more and more, but still

he cannot help rushing about.

It was indeed terrible. And to rid myself of the terror I

wished to kill myself. I experienced terror at what awaited me —

knew that that terror was even worse than the position I was in,

but still I could not patiently await the end. However convincing

the argument might be that in any case some vessel in my heart

would give way, or something would burst and all would be over, I

could not patiently await that end. The horror of darkness was too

great, and I wished to free myself from it as quickly as possible

by noose or bullet. that was the feeling which drew me most

strongly towards suicide.