Reveries of the Solitary Walker

I am now alone on earth. I have no brother, no neighbor, no friend, no society but myself. The most sociable and the most loving of human beings has been expelled from society by unanimous agreement. In the refinements of their hatred, they sought out whichever torment would cut deepest into my sensitive soul, and they have violently severed every tie that bound me to them. I would have loved them in spite of themselves. Only by ceasing to be human were they able to slip free of my affection. They are now strangers to me, unknowns, nonentities. That is what they wanted. But I, cut off from them and from everything: what am I? That is what I have left to find out. I must first take stock of where I stand. I have to look at them before I can get to myself.

Almost any instinctive impulse we act on without thinking has a cause we could find in our hearts, if we only knew how to look. Yesterday, crossing the new boulevard on my way to look for plants on the Gentilly side of the Bièvre, I turned right as I came up to the Enfer tollgate and, leaving the city behind, I walked along the road to Fontainebleau up to the bluffs beside that little river. The detour meant nothing in itself. But when I recalled that I had made the same turn automatically several times before, I looked inside myself for the reason, and I could not help laughing when I finally worked it out.