Enough

A FRAGMENT FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A DEAD ARTIST

I

II

III

'Enough,' I said to myself as I moved with lagging steps over the steep
mountainside down to the quiet little brook. 'Enough,' I said again, as
I drank in the resinous fragrance of the pinewood, strong and pungent in
the freshness of falling evening. 'Enough,' I said once more, as I sat
on the mossy mound above the little brook and gazed into its dark,
lingering waters, over which the sturdy reeds thrust up their pale green
blades.... 'Enough.'

No more struggle, no more strain, time to draw in, time to keep firm
hold of the head and to bid the heart be silent. No more to brood over
the voluptuous sweetness of vague, seductive ecstasy, no more to run
after each fresh form of beauty, no more to hang over every tremour of
her delicate, strong wings.

All has been felt, all has been gone through... I am weary. What to me
now that at this moment, larger, fiercer than ever, the sunset floods
the heavens as though aflame with some triumphant passion? What to me
that, amid the soft peace and glow of evening, suddenly, two paces
hence, hidden in a thick bush's dewy stillness, a nightingale has sung
his heart out in notes magical as though no nightingale had been on
earth before him, and he first sang the first song of first love? All
this was, has been, has been again, and is a thousand times
repeated--and to think that it will last on so to all eternity--as
though decreed, ordained--it stirs one's wrath! Yes... wrath!

IV

Ah, I am grown old! Such thoughts would never have come to me once--in
those happy days of old, when I too was aflame like the sunset and my
heart sang like the nightingale.

There is no hiding it--everything has faded about me, all life has
paled. The light that gives life's colours depth and meaning--the light
that comes out of the heart of man--is dead within me.... No, not dead
yet--it feebly smoulders on, giving no light, no warmth.

Once, late in the night in Moscow, I remember I went up to the grating
window of an old church, and leaned against the faulty pane. It was dark
under the low arched roof--a forgotten lamp shed a dull red light upon
the ancient picture; dimly could be discerned the lips only of the
sacred face--stern and sorrowful. The sullen darkness gathered about it,
ready it seemed to crush under its dead weight the feeble ray of
impotent light.... Such now in my heart is the light; and such the
darkness.

V

And this I write to thee, to thee, my one never forgotten friend, to
thee, my dear companion, whom I have left for ever, but shall not cease
to love till my life's end.... Alas! thou knowest what parted us. But
that I have no wish