The Journal of a Disappointed Man

The fact that such images arise spontaneously in my mind, show how rotten to the core I am. ... The advent of the Baby was my coup de grâce. The little creature seems to focus under one head all my personal disasters and more than once a senseless rage has clutched me at the thought of a baby in exchange for my ambition, a nursery for the study. Yet, on the whole, I find it a good and satisfying thing to see her, healthy, new, intact on the threshold: I grow tired of my own dismal life just as one does of a suit of dirty clothes. My life and person are patched and greasy; hers is new and without a single blemish or misfortune.... Moreover, she makes her mother happy and consoles her grandmother too. January 21. Death