Yearning since childhood for happiness, I have ever been poor in happiness! Or shall I never attain it in the wilderness of existence?
My young dreams have flitted from the heart, — I do not recognise the world: I am deprived of my former aim of hopes, but have no new aim.
" Senseless are you and all your wishes! " spoke to me a secret voice, and I cast off for ever the best creations of my dreams.
But wherefore has the disappointment of the soul not been complete? Why lives within me the blind pity of my youthful dreams?
Thus I once murmured, meditating about my heavy lot: suddenly I saw — it was no dream — Truth before me.
" My light will show the path to happiness! " said she. " Let me but wish, — and I will teach you, impassioned one, joyful dispassionateness:
" Though through me you may lose the heat of your heart; though, learning to know people, you, perchance, frightened, may cease to love your neighbours and your friends.
" I shall destroy all the charms of existence, but shall put your mind aright; I shall pour an austere cold over your soul, but shall give it calm. "
I trembled, as I listened to her words, and grievously I replied to her: " O unearthly guest, sad is your visitation!
" Your light is the funereal light of all earthly joys! Your peace, alas! is the melancholy peace of the grave, and it is terrible to the living!
" No, I am not yours: in your severe science I shall not find happiness! Leave me: I will somehow manage to wander upon my path.
" Good-bye! or no: when my luminary in the starry height will begin to grow dim, and when the time will come to forget all that to my heart is dear, —
" Appear then! Open then my eyes, enlighten my mind, that, despising life, I may without murmuring descend into the abode of night! "