Sanine

"Here I sit, alive, thirsting for life and joy, and read my death-

warrant. Yet I cannot even protest against it!"

As in a frenzy of despair, he clasped his forehead and with ineffectual

fury appealed to some Power invisible and supreme.

"What has man done to thee that thou shouldst mock him thus? If thou

dost exist, why dost thou hide thyself from him? Why hast thou made me

thus, that even though I would believe in thee I yet have no belief in

my own faith? And, if thou shouldst answer me, how can I tell if it is

thou or I myself that makes reply? If I am right in wishing to live,

why dost thou rob me of this right which thou thyself gavest to me? If

thou hast need of our sufferings, well, these let us bear for love of

thee. Yet we know not even if a tree be not of greater worth than a

man."

"For a tree there is always hope. Even when felled it can put forth

fresh shoots, and regain new verdure and new life. But man dies, and

vanishes for ever. I lie down never to rise again. If I knew for

certain that after milliards of years I should come to life again,

patient and uncomplaining I would wait through all those centuries in

outer darkness."

Once more he read from the book: "What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the

sun?"

"One generation passeth away and another generation cometh, but the

earth abideth for ever."

"The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down and hasteth to his place

where he arose."

"The wind goeth toward the south and turneth about unto the north: it

whirleth about continually; and the wind returneth again according to

his circuits."

"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; there is nothing

new under the sun."

"There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any

remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come

after."

"I, the Preacher, was King over Israel in Jerusalem."

"I, the Preacher, was King!" He shouted out these last words, as in

vehement anger and despair, and then looked round in alarm, fearing

lest some one should have heard him. Then he took a sheet of paper and

began to write."

"I here begin this document which will end with my decease."

"Bah! how absurd it sounds!" he exclaimed as he pushed the paper from

him with such violence that it fell to the floor."