Read "Claude's Confession" by Émile Zola online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
I cannot stop, I cannot lie to myself. I had resolved to hide my misfortune from myself, to seem ignorant of my wound, hoping to forget. One sometimes kills death in its germ when one believes in life.
I suffer and weep. Without doubt, by searching within myself I will find a lamentable certainty, but I prefer to know everything to living thus, affecting a carelessness which costs me such great effort.