That was originally what I had loved him for: that at a period when our native land was nude and crude and provincial, when the famous 'atmosphere' it is supposed to lack was not even missed, when literature was lonely there and art and form akmost impossible, he had found the means to live and write like one of the first; to be free and general and not at all afraid; to feel, understand, and express everything.
Good God! Can it be, can it be, that I shall really take an axe, that I shall strike her on the head, split her skull open ... that I shall tread in the sticky warm blood, break the lock, steal and tremble; hide, all spattered in the blood ... with the axe ... Good God, can it be?
So, fatality will play me these terrible tricks. The elements themselves conspire to overwhelm me with mortification. Air, fire, and water combine their united efforts to oppose my passage. Well, they shall see what the earnest will of a determined man can do. I will not yield, I will not retreat even one inch; and we shall see who shall triumph in this great contest - man or nature.