il ne cherche le vrai que pour faire le bien...
When one is young, one venerates and despises without that art of nuances which
constitutes the best gain of life, and it is only fair that one has to pay dearly for having
assaulted men and things in this manner with Yes and No. Everything is arranged
so that the worst of tastes, the taste for the unconditional, should be cruelly fooled and
abused until a man learns to put a little art into his feelings and rather to risk trying
even what is artificial - as the real artists do.
The wrathful and reverent attitudes characteristic of youth do not seem to permit
themselves any rest until they have forged men and things in such a way that these
attitudes may be vented on them - after all, youth in itself hase something of forgery
and deception. Later, when the young soul, tourtured by all kinds of disappointments,
finally turns suspiciously against itself, still hot and wild, even in its suspicion and pangs
of conscience - how wroth it is with itself now! how it tears itself to pieces, impatiently! how
it takes revenge for its long self-delusion, just as if it had been a deliberate blindness! In
this transition one punishes oneself with mistrust against one's own feelings; one tortures
one's own enthusiasm with doubts; indeed, one experiences even a good conscience as a
danger, as if it were a way of wrapping oneself in veils and the exhaustion of subtler honesty -
above all one takes sides, takes sides on principle, against "youth" - Ten years later one
comprehends that all this too - was still youth.
----
Getting through the night has become harder and harder. Last evening, I had the uneasy feeling
that some men were trying to break into my room to shampoo me. But why? I kept imagining I saw
shadowy forms, and at 3 AM the underwear I had draped over a chair resmebled the Kaiser on
rollerskates. When I finally did fall asleep, I had that some hideous nightmare in which a woodchuck
is trying to claim my prize at a raffle. Despair...
----
constitutes the best gain of life, and it is only fair that one has to pay dearly for having
assaulted men and things in this manner with Yes and No. Everything is arranged
so that the worst of tastes, the taste for the unconditional, should be cruelly fooled and
abused until a man learns to put a little art into his feelings and rather to risk trying
even what is artificial - as the real artists do.
The wrathful and reverent attitudes characteristic of youth do not seem to permit
themselves any rest until they have forged men and things in such a way that these
attitudes may be vented on them - after all, youth in itself hase something of forgery
and deception. Later, when the young soul, tourtured by all kinds of disappointments,
finally turns suspiciously against itself, still hot and wild, even in its suspicion and pangs
of conscience - how wroth it is with itself now! how it tears itself to pieces, impatiently! how
it takes revenge for its long self-delusion, just as if it had been a deliberate blindness! In
this transition one punishes oneself with mistrust against one's own feelings; one tortures
one's own enthusiasm with doubts; indeed, one experiences even a good conscience as a
danger, as if it were a way of wrapping oneself in veils and the exhaustion of subtler honesty -
above all one takes sides, takes sides on principle, against "youth" - Ten years later one
comprehends that all this too - was still youth.
----
Getting through the night has become harder and harder. Last evening, I had the uneasy feeling
that some men were trying to break into my room to shampoo me. But why? I kept imagining I saw
shadowy forms, and at 3 AM the underwear I had draped over a chair resmebled the Kaiser on
rollerskates. When I finally did fall asleep, I had that some hideous nightmare in which a woodchuck
is trying to claim my prize at a raffle. Despair...
----