If they will publish the poem, I shall wait.
If not, I shall die on June 6th. That is settled.
THE END
Listen to me now. I must soon get to the end
of this. I mean to tell you about it. I
have spent yesterday and to-day going over this journal,
explaining things that I had written too briefly, putting
in things that ought to be there. I mean to tell
everything.
When I began this journal it was with the idea that
I should be famous, and that then it would be published.
Of late I have written it from habit, mainly, never
expecting that any one would see it. Now I write
again for a reader, to a reader. I know
that it will be published.
* * * *
*
The night before last I went down by the river.
As well as I can remember, these were the thoughts
that came to me.
* * * *
*
It was a calm, still night, and I sat watching the
lights on the water. Then suddenly I recollected
the night when the yacht had passed, and I had heard
the woman singing. It came back to me like an
apparition, that voice and that melody. I heard
it again more plainly than words can tell, dying away
over the water; and a perfect sea of woe rolled over
my soul.
I thought of that night, what I had been that night,
what hopes I had had, what fervor, what purpose, what
faith. That was, you remember, just when I was
at the height of my work; and the memory came back
to me, as it has never come back to me since the day
that I came out of the forest with my book. It
simply overwhelmed me, it shook me to the very depths
of my being. I buried my face and burst out sobbing.
It shook away from me all the hideous dulness that
had mastered me. I saw myself as I was, ruined,
lost. I cried out: “Oh, my Father
in heaven, it is gone! It is gone, and it will
never come back! I am a lost soul! I am a
traitor, I am ruined!”
So I went on, feverishly, twisting my hands together.
“I have given up the fight! I have been
beaten—oh, my God—beaten!
Think of those raging hours in the woods, those hours
of defiance, of glory! I gazed at commonplaceness
and dulness—I mocked at it; and now it has
conquered me! I am trampled down, beaten!
It is all gone out of me!” And then I cried out
in despair and terror: “Oh, no, it can’t
be! It can’t be!”
But even while I cried that, my thoughts fled back
to the horror to which I was tied, to the samples
of soap and to the filthy hole next to a drunken laborer.
The thing overwhelmed me, even while I stood there
trying to resolve.
I was frenzied. “I have done everything,”
I panted, “I have fought and toiled and struggled—I
have wept and prayed, and even begged. And yet
I have been beaten—I have gone down—down!
And what more is there that I can do? I shall
be beaten down again! Oh, what shall I do?
Is there any hope, any new plan that I can try?
Shall I go through the streets and shriek it; shall
I lay hold upon some man and make him hear me?
Is there anything—anything?”
