Claude's Confession by Émile Zola

Spring has vanished; I have awakened from my dream.

I know not the limit of my pitiful childishness; I know not what miserable soul dwells within me. The reality penetrates me, shakes me; my flesh is either acutely tortured or wildly delighted by what is; I am like a body of exquisite sonorousness, which vibrates at the slightest sensation; I have a sharp and clear perception of the society which surrounds me. And my soul is pleased to refuse the truth; it escapes from my flesh, it disdains my senses, it lives elsewhere amid deception and hope. It is thus that I walk through life. I know and I see, I blind myself and I dream. While I advance beneath the rain, in the midst of the mud, while I am profoundly conscious of all the cold, of all the dampness, I can, by means of a strange faculty, make the sun shine, be warm, create for myself a mild and delicate sky, without ceasing to feel the gloomy sky which presses down upon my shoulders. I do not ignore anything, I do not forget anything. I live doubly.