“Either woe or well-being, sometimes I have a craving to be engulfed. This morning (in the country), the weather is mild, overcast. I am suffering (from some incident). The notion of suicide occurs to me, pure of any resentment (not blackmailing anyone); an insipid notion; it alters nothing ("breaks" nothing), matches the color (the silence, the desolation) of this morning.

Another day, in the rain, we're waiting for the boat at the lake; from happiness, this time, the same outburst of annihilation sweeps through me. This is how it happens sometimes, misery or joy engulfs me, without any particular tumult ensuing, nor any pathos: I am dissolved, not dismembered; I fall, I flow, I melt. Such thoughts--grazed, touched, tests (the way you test the water with your foot)--can recur. Nothing solemn about them. This is exactly what gentleness is.”