Norbert de Varenne went on: "No, you do not understand me now, but later
on you will remember what I am saying to you at this moment. A day
comes, and it comes early for many, when there is an end to mirth, for
behind everything one looks at one sees death. You do not even
understand the word. At your age it means nothing; at mine it is
terrible. Yes, one understands it all at once, one does not know how or
why, and then everything in life changes its aspect. For fifteen years I
have felt death assail me as if I bore within me some gnawing beast. I
have felt myself decaying little by little, month by month, hour by
hour, like a house crumbling to ruin. Death has disfigured me so
completely that I do not recognize myself. I have no longer anything
about me of myself--of the fresh, strong man I was at thirty. I have
seen death whiten my black hairs, and with what skillful and spiteful
slowness. Death has taken my firm skin, my muscles, my teeth, my whole
body of old, only leaving me a despairing soul, soon to be taken too.
Every step brings me nearer to death, every moment, every breath hastens
his odious work. To breathe, sleep, drink, eat, work, dream, everything
we do is to die. To live, in short, is to die. I now see death so near
that I often want to stretch my arms to push it back. I see it
everywhere. The insects crushed on the path, the falling leaves, the
white hair in a friend's head, rend my heart and cry to me, "Behold it!"
It spoils for me all I do, all I see, all that I eat and drink, all that
I love; the bright moonlight, the sunrise, the broad ocean, the noble
rivers, and the soft summer evening air so sweet to breathe."
He walked on slowly, dreaming aloud, almost forgetting that he had a
listener: "And no one ever returns--never. The model of a statue may be
preserved, but my body, my face, my thoughts, my desires will never
reappear again. And yet millions of beings will be born with a nose,
eyes, forehead, cheeks, and mouth like me, and also a soul like me,
without my ever returning, without even anything recognizable of me
appearing in these countless different beings. What can we cling to?
What can we believe in? All religions are stupid, with their puerile
morality and their egoistical promises, monstrously absurd. Death alone
is certain."
He stopped, reflected for a few moments, and then, with a look of
resignation, said: "I am a lost creature. I have neither father nor
mother, nor sister nor brother; no wife, no children, no God."