Page:Emma Goldman - The Social Significance of the Modern Drama - 1914.djvu/227

 unfit" and to supply learned professors with the means of comfortable livelihood.

Yet there is Ferrand, the vagabond, the social outcast who has never seen the inside of a university, propounding a philosophy which very few professors even dream of:

Ferrand. While I was on the road this time I fell ill of a fever. It seemed to me in my illness that I saw the truth—how I was wasting in this world—I would never be good for anyone—nor anyone for me-all would go by, and I never of it—fame, and fortune, and peace, even the necessities of life, ever mocking me. And I saw, so plain, that I should be vagabond all my days, and my days short; I dying in the end the death of a dog. I saw it all in my fever—clear as that flame-there was nothing for us others, but the herb of death. And so I wished to die. I told no one of my fever. I lay out on the ground—it was verree cold. But they would not let me die on the roads of their parishes-They took me to an Institution. I looked in their eyes while I lay there, and I saw more clear than the blue heaven that they thought it best that I should die, although they would not let me. Then naturally my spirit rose, and I said: "So much the worse for you. I will live a little more." One is made like that! Life is sweet. That little girl you had here, Monsieur—in her too there is something of wild savage. She must have joy of life. I have seen her since I came back. She has embraced the life of joy. It is not quite the same thing. She is lost, Monsieur, as a stone that sinks in water. I can