A discourse on that which troubles me most, and with each word I distort myself a little more — as when touching upon the loneliness that besets me: the loneliness of the human condition, born of the impossibility of seeing oneself whole; the loneliness reserved for men of love; the loneliness that man's own freedom imposes upon him; and, finally, the deepest loneliness of all, that of Angst.

Throughout this entire discourse, I see myself as a wretch stumbling through the world — almost like Marmeladov,...