V.
“Вut, perhaps, I overlooked something, or did not understand something right?” I said to myself several times. “It is impossible that this condition of despair should be characteristic of men!” And I tried to find an explanation for these questions in all those branches of knowledge which men had acquired. I searched painfully and for a long time, and I searched not from idle curiosity, not in a limp manner, but painfully and stubbornly, day and night,—I searched as a perishing man searches for his salvation,—and I found nothing.
I searched in all the branches of knowledge, and not only failed to find anything, but even convinced myself that all those who, like myself, had been searching in the sciences, had failed just as much. They had not only not found anything, but had also clearly recognized the fact that that which had brought me to despair,—the meaninglessness of life,—was the only incontestable knowledge which was accessible to man.
I searched everywhere, and, thanks to a life passed in study, and also because through my connections with the learned world I had access to the most learned of men in every imaginable branch of knowledge, who did not refuse to disclose to me their knowledge, not only in books, but also in conversations, I learned everything which science replies to the question of life.
For a long time I could not believe that science had no answer to give to the questions of life, except what it gave. For a long time it seemed to me, as I looked at the im-
25
