When we were seven years old, they would carry us on their backs, pacing back and forth over the snow, and even then we used to work sixteen hours. They often knelt down to feed us as we stood by the machine. For we would not step away from it until we fainted. We saw clearly that pleasure is nothing but a mental blackout, a dereliction of consciousness because it fails to attain the fullness of self-love but then, once it believes itself in possession of the desired object, takes a seat, at its leisure, and expires. So that consciousness may finally be silent, we labor in the unwavering expectation of such consummation, unquenched and so with constant wakefulness, a sparse flow of nervous organs never at peace, from neck to shoulder blade and back. And when we work, it is at bottom not because we wish to live; all we desire is to become unconscious. Ah, and the fruits of our labors, which sustain our continued existence, prevent complete unconsciousness and induce only the impotence of a swoon that is merely the imperfect oblivion from which we wake up every time to strive for it afresh. The time desolate of work is empty, it trickles away untamed and unpaid, and I myself am such time, sitting in the rooms, stagnant the way old air is stagnant, motionless and untamed and unconverted into money, and so I feel that, unlike the movie stars, I am most mortal. Hence my decision: it is essential for me to regard myself as an outcome (a product)—and, I add vindictively, I want to make a deal. The future is a home stretch: what is on hand, what is in demand, what can be secured. And quite personally, I will recover what I have lost along the way: new classifications, new meaning, new work.