140
PARTISAN REVIEW
Oberlin excepted-all was dreamlike, cold. He amused himself by
mentally turning the houses upside down, dressing and undressing people,
by thinking out the most extravagant pranks. Sometimes he felt an ir–
resistible urge to carry out whatever project he happened to be hatching
in his head, and then he made the most horrible faces. Once he was
sitting next to Oberlin, the cat was lying opposite him on a chair. Sud–
denly his eyes became fix ed, he kept them riveted upon the animal;
then slowly he slipped off his chair, likewise the cat; it seemed to be
spellbound by his gaze, grew immensely frightened, arched and bristled
its back in terror. Lenz, making catlike sounds, his face ghastly, distorted ;
as though in desperation they hurled themselves at each other, till at last
Madame Oberlin rose to separate them. Then again he was deeply
ashamed of himself. His nocturnal torments increased terribly. It was
only with the greatest difficulty that he could go to sleep at all after
first trying to fill the terrible void. Then between sleep and waking he
fell into a dreadful state; he collided with some gruesome thing, it was
horrible, madness clutched at him ; he started up, bathed in sweat, uttered
the most piercing shrieks, and only gradually came to himself again .
Then he had to begin with the simplest objects in order to come to his
senses. Really it was not he who did so, but a powerful instinct of self–
preservation; he seemed to be split in two, with one part of him trying
to save the other and calling out to itself; gripped by the most violent
fear, he would recite poems again and again or tell himself stories until
he recovered himself.
Even in the daytime he had these attacks, and then they were still
more terrible; previously daylight had saved him from them. Then it
seemed to him that he alone existed, that the world was only a fragment
of his imagination, that there was nothing but he himself, and he the
eternally damned, Satan, left to himself and to his painful imaginings.
He tore through his past life with blinding speed, and then said: "Con–
sequential, consequential"; if somebody spoke, he said: "Inconsequential.
inconsequential" ;-it was the cleft of irremediable madness, a madness
throughout eternity.
The urge for self-preservation would surprise him, he would fling
himself into Oberlin's arms, cling to them as though he wanted to take
refuge inside him. Oberlin was the only person who was alive to him
and through whom life was still revealed to him. Then gradually Ober–
lin's voice would recall him to his senses; he would kneel down before
him, his hands resting in Oberlin's hands, his face covered with cold
sweat but resting on Oberlin's lap, his whole body trembling and heav–
ing. Oberlin's pity for him was endless, the family were on their knees,
