I was faced with a mask of death, and I did not cower from it. I did not shun it: instead death became a companion for me, an instigator, for with each breath I took I was compelled to grasp more and more of life.
My former perspective fell away. Others thought I was changed, but I felt for the first time as though I commanded myself.
I discarded all conventions and rules. I would do what I wanted to do.
I have always had a secret love for wickedness, which perhaps lends credibility to the wrongful acts I have knowingly committed. Yet in the face of death I cannot say any repentance for them. My outcome would be the same; I would still lay slowly dying whether or no I had ventured to these lonely but alluring precipices.
When I was very young, there was a boy who was called upon to push my chair. Any reluctance a boy would feel to be at the disposal of one of the sex who, at his age, must have seemed alien and repulsive, was concealed in a face full of Christian love and duty.
He made me forget my misfortunes. He offered me friendship and I took it, and in my loneliness I insisted on having all of him, and he gave it to me. Oskar became my playmate, my solace, and despite my infirmities he made me feel as though I reciprocated all of the glorious felicity he bestowed on me.
Certain facts I always knew: that Oskar's mother was a servant who lived in a secluded cottage on the estate, that my mother disliked her. Without warning or commotion which might be expected to precede such an act, my mother removed Oskar and his mother from the premises.
I learned only through the whispers of servants he was gone: we were removed from one another at the time of the decision, never to say even a farewell.
My indignation was paramount. That the being who offered me every happiness I possessed should be removed from me on account of some reasoning I sensed innately was evil, impacted my character dreadfully. I was unmanageable to all, at first on hope that it would compel my boy's return and then, when I lost hope, I was even evil.
The next to push my chair was a young, pretty servant named Gervaise. Her replacement I could not accept: I devised all manner of torment to defer her. She expected and thwarted me easily, making me aware of my deficiencies so that I despised her.
My mother drifted from me, and I never stopped hating her till her death, when my hatred dissipated into a sterile, unreasoning pain nothing would ever lift.
My brother Gauvain relieved Gervaise of her duties eventually. He sensed my unabsolvable loneliness and tried to be to me as my Oskar was: but it could never be.
It was not till much later I learned the things which had contrived to Oskar's and his mother's dismissal. As I mentioned, I have no deference for the conventions of this society, and it did not matter to me if my feelings or actions were unacceptable.
It was soon after my father's death that Oskar returned to the estate. I was nineteen at that time.
My former perspective fell away. Others thought I was changed, but I felt for the first time as though I commanded myself.
I discarded all conventions and rules. I would do what I wanted to do.
I have always had a secret love for wickedness, which perhaps lends credibility to the wrongful acts I have knowingly committed. Yet in the face of death I cannot say any repentance for them. My outcome would be the same; I would still lay slowly dying whether or no I had ventured to these lonely but alluring precipices.
When I was very young, there was a boy who was called upon to push my chair. Any reluctance a boy would feel to be at the disposal of one of the sex who, at his age, must have seemed alien and repulsive, was concealed in a face full of Christian love and duty.
He made me forget my misfortunes. He offered me friendship and I took it, and in my loneliness I insisted on having all of him, and he gave it to me. Oskar became my playmate, my solace, and despite my infirmities he made me feel as though I reciprocated all of the glorious felicity he bestowed on me.
Certain facts I always knew: that Oskar's mother was a servant who lived in a secluded cottage on the estate, that my mother disliked her. Without warning or commotion which might be expected to precede such an act, my mother removed Oskar and his mother from the premises.
I learned only through the whispers of servants he was gone: we were removed from one another at the time of the decision, never to say even a farewell.
My indignation was paramount. That the being who offered me every happiness I possessed should be removed from me on account of some reasoning I sensed innately was evil, impacted my character dreadfully. I was unmanageable to all, at first on hope that it would compel my boy's return and then, when I lost hope, I was even evil.
The next to push my chair was a young, pretty servant named Gervaise. Her replacement I could not accept: I devised all manner of torment to defer her. She expected and thwarted me easily, making me aware of my deficiencies so that I despised her.
My mother drifted from me, and I never stopped hating her till her death, when my hatred dissipated into a sterile, unreasoning pain nothing would ever lift.
My brother Gauvain relieved Gervaise of her duties eventually. He sensed my unabsolvable loneliness and tried to be to me as my Oskar was: but it could never be.
It was not till much later I learned the things which had contrived to Oskar's and his mother's dismissal. As I mentioned, I have no deference for the conventions of this society, and it did not matter to me if my feelings or actions were unacceptable.
It was soon after my father's death that Oskar returned to the estate. I was nineteen at that time.