Page:The Life of Michael Angelo.djvu/32

10 more affected than the one he sought to console. His ceaseless activity and overwhelming fatigue delivered him over without defence to all the aberrations of a mind which was filled with suspicions. He distrusted both his friends and his enemies. He distrusted his parents, his brothers, and his adopted son, suspecting that they were impatiently waiting for his death.

Everything disquieted him. Even the members of his own family made a mockery of his eternal disquietude. As he himself said, he lived "in a state of melancholy, or rather of madness." By dint of much suffering he ended by finding a sort of bitter pleasure in pain: