Page:The Bet and Other Stories.djvu/42

30 I laugh too. Their attention is refreshed and I can go on.

No sport, no recreation, no game ever gave me such delight as reading a lecture. Only in a lecture could I surrender myself wholly to passion and understand that inspiration is not a poet's fiction, but exists indeed. And I do not believe that Hercules, even after the most delightful of his exploits, felt such a pleasant weariness as I experienced every time after a lecture.

This was in the past. Now at lectures I experience only torture. Not half an hour passes before I begin to feel an invincible weakness in my legs and shoulders. I sit down in my chair, but I am not used to lecture sitting. In a moment I am up again, and lecture standing. Then I sit down again. Inside my mouth is dry, my voice is hoarse, my head feels dizzy. To hide my state from my audience I drink some water now and then, cough, wipe my nose continually, as though I was troubled by a cold, make inopportune puns, and finally announce the interval earlier than I should. But chiefly I feel ashamed.

Conscience and reason tell me that the best thing I could do now is to read my farewell lecture to the boys, give them my last word, bless them and give up my place to someone younger and stronger than I. But, heaven be my judge, I have not the courage to act up to my conscience.