And yet, if his instinct towards literature was genuine, he is not fundamentally happy, and when he chances to meet an author, or to read about authors (even about their suicides of despair), or to be deeply impressed by a book, he is acutely aware that he has committed the sin of taking refuge from life; he knows that the extraordinary respect which he pays to his conscience is at bottom a doping of that organ; he perceives that the smooth path is in fact the rough path, and that the rough path, which he dared not face, might have been, with all its asperities, the smooth one. His existence is a vast secret and poisonous regret; and there is nothing whatever to be done; there is no antidote for the poison; the dope is a drug—and insufficient at that…
Na bado, kama silika yake kuelekea fasihi ilikuwa ni ya kweli, hayuko kimsingi furaha, na wakati yeye nafasi ya kukutana mwandishi, au kusoma kuhusu waandishi (hata kuhusu visa vya kujiua yao ya kukata tamaa), au kuwa undani hisia na kitabu, yeye ni acutely kufahamu kwamba ametenda dhambi ya kimbilio kutoka maisha; yeye anajua kwamba heshima ya ajabu ambayo yeye inalipa dhamiri yake ni chini dopning ya chombo kwamba; yeye anatambua kwamba njia laini kwa kweli ni njia mbaya, na kwamba njia mbaya, ambayo yeye hakuthubutu uso, anaweza kuwa, pamoja na asperities yake yote, laini moja. kuwepo kwake ni siri kubwa na masikitiko sumu; na hakuna kitu chochote kifanyike; hakuna Makata kwa sumu; dope ni dawa-na haitoshi saa kwamba …