For such reproaches are unverifiable even as between one person and another. The existence of past mistakes in education cannot be proved, so how much the less the original responsibility for them. And now let me see a reproach that in such a situation would not be transformed into a sigh.

That is the reproach that I have to make. It has a sound core, theory supports it. That which really has been spoiled in me, however, I forget for the moment or excuse, and don’t as yet make any fuss about it. On the other hand, I can prove at any time that my education tried to make another person out of me than the one I became. It is for the harm, therefore, that my educators could have done me in accordance with their intentions that I reproach them; I demand from their hands the person I now am, and since they cannot give him to me, I make of my reproach and laughter a drumbeat sounding into the world beyond. But all this only serves a different purpose. The reproach for having after all spoiled a part of me – for having spoiled a good, beautiful part (in my dreams sometimes it appears to me the way a dead bride appears to others) – this reproach that is forever on the point of becoming a sigh, this reproach should before all else reach there undamaged as an honest reproach, which is what it is, too. Thus it happens that the great reproach, to which nothing can happen, takes the small one by the hand, if the great one walks, the small one hops, but when the small one gets there, it distinguishes itself – which is what we have always expected – and sounds the trumpet for the drummer.

Often I think it over and give my thoughts free rein, without interfering, but I always come to the conclusion that my education has spoiled me more than I can understand. Externally I am a man like others, for my physical education kept as close to the ordinary as my body itself was ordinary, and even if I am pretty short and a little stout, I still please many, even girls. There is nothing to be said about that. Only recently one of them said something very intelligent: ‘Ah, if I could only see you naked once, then you ought to be really pretty and kissable.’ But if I lacked an upper lip here, there an ear, here a rib, there a finger, if I had hairless spots on my head and pockmarks on my face, this would still be no adequate counterpart to my inner imperfection. This imperfection is not congenital and therefore so much the more painful to bear. For like everyone, I too have my centre of gravity inside me from birth, and this not even the most foolish education could displace. This good centre of gravity I still have, but to a certain extent I no longer have the corresponding body. And a centre of gravity that has no work to do becomes lead, and sticks in the body like a musket ball. But this imperfection is not earned either, I have suffered its emergence through no fault of my own. This is why I can find nowhere within myself any repentance, much as I may seek it. For repentance would be good for me, it cries itself out all by itself, it takes the pain to one side and settles everything alone like an affair of honour; we remain upright because it relieves us.

My imperfection is, as I said, not congenital, not earned, nevertheless I bear it better than others, by means of great labour of the imagination and sought-out expedients, bear much smaller misfortunes – a horrible wife, for instance, poverty, a miserable profession – and am at the same time not at all black in the face with despair, but rather white and red.

I would not be so, if my education had penetrated into me as deeply as it wanted to. Perhaps my youth was too short for that, in which case, now in my forties,3 I still rejoice over its shortness with all my heart. That alone made it possible for me to have enough strength left to become conscious of the deprivations of my youth; further, to suffer through these deprivations; further, to reproach the past in all respects; and, finally, to have left a remnant of strength for myself. But all these strengths are, again, only a remnant of those I possessed as a child, which exposed me more than others to the corruptors of youth, yes, a good racing chariot is the first to be pursued and overtaken by dust and wind, and its wheels fly over obstacles so that one might almost believe in love.

What I still am now is revealed most clearly to me by the strength with which the reproaches urge their way out of me. There were times when I had nothing else inside me except reproaches driven by rage, so that, although physically well, I would hold on to strangers in the street because the reproaches inside me tossed from side to side like water in a basin that was being carried rapidly.

Those times are past. The reproaches lie around inside me like strange tools that I hardly have the courage to seize and lift any longer. At the same time the corruption left by my old education seems to begin to affect me again more and more; the passion to remember, perhaps a general characteristic of bachelors of my age, opens my heart again to those people who should be the objects of my reproaches; and an event like that of yesterday, formerly as frequent as eating, is now so rare that I make a note of it.

But even above and beyond that, I myself, I who have just now put down my pen in order to open the window, am perhaps the best aid of my assailants. For I underestimate myself, and that in itself means an overestimation of others; but even aside from that I overestimate them. And aside from that I also do harm to myself directly. If I am overcome by the desire to make reproaches, I look out of the window. could deny that the fishermen sit there in their boats like pupils who have been taken out to the river from school; good, their immobility is often incomprehensible, like that of flies on window-panes.