The snow still fell in great moist
flakes. At last I reached Gronland; far out, near the church, I sat down
to rest on a seat. All the passers-by looked at me with much astonishment.
I fell a-thinking.
Thou good God, what a miserable plight I have come to! I was so heartily
tired and weary of all my miserable life that I did not find it worth the
trouble of fighting any longer to preserve it. Adversity had gained the
upper hand; it had been too strong for me. I had become so strangely
poverty-stricken and broken, a mere shadow of what I once had been; my
shoulders were sunken right down on one side, and I had contracted a habit
of stooping forward fearfully as I walked, in order to spare my chest what
little I could. I had examined my body a few days ago, one noon up in my
room, and I had stood and cried over it the whole time. I had worn the
same shirt for many weeks, and it was quite stiff with stale sweat, and
had chafed my skin. A little blood and water ran out of the sore place; it
did not hurt much, but it was very tiresome to have this tender place in
the middle of my stomach. I had no remedy for it, and it wouldn't heal of
its own accord. I washed it, dried it carefully, and put on the same
shirt. There was no help for it, it....
I sit there on the bench and ponder over all this, and am sad enough. I
loathe myself. My very hands seem distasteful to me; the loose, almost
coarse, expression of the backs of them pains me, disgusts me.
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