Page:Andreyev - A Dilemma (Brown, 1910).djvu/114

106 loved by the vulgar, that I loved in myself—I loved my human thought, my freedom. I ever have known anything surpassing my thought; I worshipped it—and did it not deserve it? Did it not, like a giant, wrestle with the entire world and its delusions? It lifted me upon the summit of a high mountain, and I saw how far below me swarmed little people with their animal passions, with their eternal dread of life and death, with their churches, liturgies and prayers.

How mighty I felt, how free, how happy! Like a medieval baron secluded in his impregnable castle, truly an eagle in his nest, proudly and imperiously surveying the valleys below—so I was, invincible and proud in my castle, behind these bones of the cranium. A lord over myself, I also was a lord over the world.

I have been betrayed—basely, insidiously; thus women betray, and slaves—and thought. My castle became my prison. My enemies fell upon me in my castle—where's salvation? In the impregnability of