There are wounds in life that, like a canker, slowly consume and erode the soul in solitude. These pains cannot be confessed to anyone, for people are accustomed to dismissing such unbelievable sufferings as rare and curious incidents. If someone dares to speak or write of them, others, guided by their habitual beliefs and accepted opinions, receive them with skeptical, mocking smiles. Humanity has found no remedy for them; the only relief lies in oblivion—through wine, or through the artificial sleep induced by opium and narcotics. But alas, the effect of such remedies is temporary, and instead of soothing the pain, they eventually intensify it.
Will anyone ever uncover the secret of these supernatural occurrences, these reflections of the soul’s shadow that reveal themselves in the state of stupor, in that limbo between sleep and wakefulness?
I will speak only of one such incident that befell me—one that shook me so profoundly I shall never forget it. Its ominous mark, as long as I live—from the beginning of time to eternity, beyond the limits of human understanding—will poison my existence. I write “poison,” yet what I mean is that I have carried, and will always carry, its burning scar within me.
I shall try to set down what I remember, what remains in my mind from the chain of events, perhaps to form some overall judgment about it—or no, merely to reassure myself, or even simply to believe it myself. It does not matter to me whether others believe it or not. I only fear that I may die tomorrow without ever having known myself. Through the experiences of my life I have discovered the dreadful abyss that separates me from others. I learned that silence is best, that I must keep my thoughts to myself. And if I now decide to write, it is only to introduce myself to my shadow—the shadow bent upon the wall before the lamp, which seems to devour with utmost appetite whatever I write. It is for him that I make this attempt, to see whether perhaps we may come to know one another better. Since the time I severed all my ties with others, I have wished to know myself more clearly.
Idle thoughts, perhaps—but they torment me more than any truth. Are these people who resemble me, who appear to share my needs and desires, nothing but deceptions? Are they merely a collection of shadows brought into existence to mock and mislead me? Is everything I feel, see, and measure nothing but illusion, entirely removed from reality?
I write only for my shadow cast upon the wall by the lamp. I must introduce myself to him.
***
In this vile world, steeped in poverty and misery, for the first time I thought that a ray of sunlight had shone upon my life. But alas, it was not sunlight—only a passing gleam, a shooting star that revealed itself to me in the form of a woman, or perhaps an angel. In its light, for a single instant—only a second—I saw all the miseries of my life and grasped their vastness and grandeur. Then that fleeting radiance vanished once more into the whirlpool of darkness from which it had emerged. No, I could not hold on to that passing light.
Three months—no—two months and four days had passed since I had lost track of her. Yet the memory of her enchanted eyes, the fatal spark within them, has remained with me always. How could I forget her, when she is so inseparably bound to my existence?
No, I shall never utter her name. With that ethereal, slender, mist-veiled figure, with those two large, astonished, luminous eyes—behind which my life smoldered and slowly burned—she no longer belongs to this base and predatory world. No, her name must not be sullied by earthly things.
After her, I withdrew entirely from the ranks of men—from the ranks of the foolish and the fortunate—and sought oblivion in wine and opium. My life passed, and still passes, entirely within the four walls of my room. My whole existence has unfolded between four walls.
All day long, my occupation was painting designs on pen-case covers. My time was wholly devoted to decorating pen-cases and to the use of wine and opium. I had taken up this ridiculous craft of painting pen-cases merely to distract myself, merely to kill time.
By chance, my house stands outside the city, in a quiet and secluded area, far from the turmoil and clamor of people’s lives. It is isolated, surrounded by ruins. Beyond the ditch, one can see the battered mud houses where the city begins. I do not know which madman, or ill-tempered builder from some ancient age, constructed this house. When I close my eyes, not only do all its corners and crevices appear before me, I feel their pressure upon my shoulders. It is a house such as one might see painted only on old pen-cases.
I must write all this down, lest I be mistaken about myself. I must explain everything to my shadow cast upon the wall. Yes, before, I had only one small consolation. Within the four walls of my room, I painted pen-cases and passed the time with this absurd diversion. But after seeing those two eyes—after seeing her—meaning, purpose, and value drained from every movement and action in my sight.
And yet, what is strange—what is unbelievable—is that I do not know why the subject of all my paintings has always been the same. I always painted a cypress tree, beneath which an old, hunched man, wrapped in a cloak like an Indian ascetic, sat squatting, a shawl wound around his head, the index finger of his left hand pressed to his lips in wonder. Opposite him stood a girl in a long black dress, bending forward to offer him a blue lotus—because a narrow stream separated them. Had I seen this scene before? Had it been revealed to me in a dream? I do not know. I only know that whatever I painted, it was always this scene and this subject. My hand, without my will, drew the same image again and again. Stranger still, there were buyers for these paintings, and through my uncle I even sent such pen-cases to India, where he sold them and sent me the money.
…