Quidam and I

It really is astonishing. Here are a few indicative passages:

And yet I have language, I have her, I have the human race, I have every external evidence against me, I have nothing to plead in self-defense. (February 2 Midnight)

She has seen me overwhelmed by the power of the religious, but she does not have an eye for the religious. (February 7 Midnight)

Be still, then. It is a matter of being as insignificant as possible. (February 7 Midnight)

... even though all religious moroseness and severity are foreign to my nature, and especially with regard to her, whose presence makes me as gentle as possible. (February 28 Morning)

If only something might happen ... (February 13 Midnight)

No wonder I did not understand it, I who from earliest youth have lived in the continual contradiction between seeming to be talented in comparison with the particular individual and secretly being convinced that I was good for nothing. (February 13 Midnight)

I am free and independent, unemployed, the servant of no man, of no other woman, of no conditions of life. I lie along the shore in my boat and wonder whether some phenomenon will show up out there. (February 13 Midnight)

A year ago today... (February 28 Morning)

A few days ago there was a man who said of us that we were a proper young engaged couple [or something like that]. Obviously, we are that indeed: she by virtue of her seventeen years and I by virtue of the arificial leg I use ... to me I am just another Captain Gribskopf.(February 20 Midnight) Except I'm not fooling anybody.

Courage and perseverance! I shall reach the religious with her ... (February 28 Morning)

I am so uneasy, almost to the point of madness ... (February 28 Morning)

I have declared perpetual warfare on the power we call chance, in order, if possible, to do away with it - which does not need force of arms but particularly memeory, a memory that is just as niggling as chance itself. (February 28 Midnight)

Of course in these days of Drs. Phil, Laura and Drew, deception of Q's kind is a little more difficult, as we are all so well attuned to psychological subterfuge. Or I'm not bold enough for it. Or maybe I'm just not capable of it. Or maybe I'm kidding myself.

This has been a silly entry all my own. Now I want to go to sleep. (February 2 Midnight)