l'homme des mers

"Yes, yes," he thought. "The work that our life accomplishes, the whole of this work, the meaning of it is not, nor can be, intelligible to me. What were my aunts for? Why did Nikolenka Irtenieff die? Why am I living? What was Katusha for? And my madness? Why that war? Why my subsequent lawless life? To understand it, to understand the whole of the Master's will is not in my power. But to do His will, that is written down in my conscience, is in my power; that I know for certain. And when I am fulfilling it I have sureness and peace."

HERFST

Meine Zeit steht in deinen Händen

Why are you moving forward? Why can’t you see that your ink isn’t making any marks, that although you may be moving ahead freely, you’re moving through a void, that the reason you never encounter any obstacles is that you never left your starting place? And yet you write—you write on and on, disclosing to me what I dictate to you, revealing to me what I know; as others read, they enrich you with what they take from you and give you what you teach them. Now you have done what you did not do; what you did not write has been written: you are condemned to be indelible

… for we know not what we should pray for …

It says : ‘O Mother, you will never wear the furs you scrimped and scavenged every penny for, and on my days off now I do not go with flowers to the hospital; I take the roses out to Cemetery Lane…’