I cannot remember ever having taken any trouble -- no trace of struggle can be discovered in my life, I am the opposite of an heroic nature. To 'want' something, to 'strive' after something, to have a 'goal', a 'wish' in view -- I know none of this from experience. Even at this moment I look out upon my future -- a distant future! -- as upon a smooth sea: it is ruffled by no desire. I do not want in the slightest that anything should become other than it is; I do not want myself to become other than I am . . . But that is how I have always lived, I have harbored no desire. Someone who after his forty-fourth year can say he has never striven after honors, after women, after money! -- Not that I could not have had them . . .