What can it be, do you think? A hidden nerve that’s given way? Or something we have failed in or sinned against in ourselves, perhaps — who knows? A … - Jens Peter Jacobsen

It is only when we have heard the door of destiny slam shut that we begin to feel the iron-cold talons of certainty digging into our breast, gathering slowly, slowly around our heart, and fastening their clutches upon the fine thread of hope on which our world of happiness hangs: then the thread is severed; then all that it held falls and is shattered; then the shriek of despair sounds through the emptiness.

In doubt, no one despairs.

A dreary sense of loneliness came over him as he realized how everything he had brought with him from home and from the old days seemed to fall away from him and let him go his own way, forgotten and forsaken. The door to the past was barred, and he stood outside, empty-handed and alone; whatever he needed and desired he must win for himself — new friends and new shelter, new affections and new memories.

He yearned for a thousand tremulous dreams, for cool and delicate images, transparent tints, fleeting scents, and exquisite music from streams of highly strung, tensely drawn silvery strings — and then silence, the innermost heart of silence, where the waves of air never bore a single stray tone, but where all was rest unto death, steeped in the calm glow of red colors and the languid warmth of fiery fragrance.