tremble in my words, and their reflection never appear on my face. Oh, believe that it is impossible for me to keep away from them! I know that in my mind terrible chasms open, on whose edge my soul trembles and whose depth I must measure with horrified eyes, but it is impossible for me to avoid them. There are times when it seems to me that everything I do and see lacks reality, that there is no truth in anything, that we are all wrong, that things should be entirely different—and yet I should not know how to change them or whether it would be best to change them, for people are satisfied with what the world bestows. I comprehend your ill-feeling toward me for my sighing and turning my eyes in all directions to investigate something that perhaps is not, was not, and never will be. I wanted to ask the Emperor about it, for in him is said to be centered the wisdom of our age; he probably feels a similar dissatisfaction, for he is constantly changing, destroying and reversing. He would at least have told me whether I was
