"Is love of life a weakness then?" He fell a-thinking.
"Perhaps it is. Perhaps I care for life for the same reason that made Voltaire confess before he died: vital energy giving way. And after all, life!"
Here I set to explain to him at great length that life is in reality an evil, and not worth regretting when it goes from us, that in its track it leaves a bitterness still greater than the bitterness of self-denial and self-control, and evokes a yet stronger reaction. …
To that he said: "Yes, the reaction which life brings is directed against life, and makes it easier to die. All the better."
"It is well," he added. "It is not after all life itself that I wish for. I wish only to be convinced—convinced by experience that life is an evil thing. This is all that I would have."
When he left me, I presented him with a great many flowers, begging him, as a pretext, to carry them to his wife from me.
Looking out of the window, I saw him going his way, clad in a fur, notwithstanding the mildness of the weather, and pressing my flowers to his heart.
