Epitaph

You have read upon my countenance the marks of bad qualities, which were not existent but they were assumed to exist and so they were born. With you I was modest yet I was accused of slyness. I grew secretive. I profoundly felt both good and evil. Yet you did not caress me, you insulted me. I grew vindictive. I was gloomy at times, and you became more merry and talkative. I felt myself higher than you. I was rated lower and I grew envious. I was prepared to love you and yet not be understood. I learned to hate. My colourless youth flowed by in conflict with myself and you, so fearing ridicule I buried my best feelings in the depths of my heart. There they died. I spoke the truth, and I was not believed. I began to deceive. Having acquired a thorough knowledge of the world and the springs of society, I grew skilled in the science of life and I saw how you without any skill were happy, enjoying gratuitously the advantages which I so unweariedly sought. Despair was born within my breast, not that despair which is cured at the muzzle of a pistol, but the cold, powerless despair concealed beneath the mask of amiability and a good-natured smile. I became a moral cripple. One half of my soul ceased to exist; it dried up, evaporated, died, and I cut it off and cast it from me. The other half moved and lived at the service of all; but it remained unobserved because you refused to acknowledge that the half which had perished had ever existed. But now, the memory of it has been awakened within me by your empty promises and this is its epitaph.