I looked down at myself, then wasted to the bone, a stranger to the taste of wine or tobacco, to all the joys of life, a miserable heart-broken wretch, and I cursed that old man and the thought of him till my lips were dry and my throat ached.

I walked back to my miserable dwelling with a red fire before my eyes, muttering, cursing that power which stood behind the universe, and which we call God, that there should be vomited forth into the world day by day, hour by hour, this black stream of human wretchedness, an everlasting mockery to those who would seek for the joy of life.
"They took me to the hospital, and they called my illness brain-fever.
But long before they thought me convalescent I was conscious, lying awake and plotting my escape.

With cunning I managed it.

Of my wife and child I never once thought.

Every trace of human affection seemed withered up in my heart.