Naturally, as he is the aggressor, he is repulsed
and put down, and, after creating imaginary enemies, he creates real
ones, especially in politics where, on principle, he daily preaches
insurrection and murder. And finally, he is of course prosecuted,
convicted at the Chatelet court, tracked by the police, obliged to fly
and wander from one hiding-place to another; to live like a bat "in a
cellar, underground, in a dark dungeon;"[23] once, says his friend
Panis, he passed "six weeks sitting on his behind" like a madman in
his cell, face to face with his reveries. - It is not surprising
that, with such a system, the reverie should become more intense, more
and more gloomy, and, at last settle down into a confirmed nightmare;
that, in his distorted brain, objects should appear distorted; that,
even in full daylight men and things should seem awry, as in a
magnifying, dislocating mirror; that, frequently, on the numbers (of
his journal) appearing too blood-thirsty, and his chronic disease too
acute, his physician should bleed him to arrest these attacks and
prevent their return.[24]
But it has become a habit: henceforth, falsehood grow in his brain as
if it was their native soil; planting himself on the irrational he
cultivates the absurd, even physical and mathematical.
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