B993 <=> B995 (BTG XLII Beelzebub in America, p. 994)

“’Although this cost me at the time much suffering and remorse of conscience, yet the environment together again with the action of this alcohol caused me to fall a second time; and thereafter everything headed so to say down an inclined plane and led to the point where I am now indeed in this respect a most filthy animal.

“’Especially now at times, whenever I happen to be completely free from the influence of alcohol, I suffer moral anguish and loathe myself with the whole of my being, and at such moments I hasten all the more to pour this alcohol into myself again in order to forget myself and thus drown my sufferings.

“’Having lived this ugly life in the countries of Europe I enumerated, I finally settled down here in Paris, in precisely that European city to which women come from every part of Europe and from other continents with the obvious intention of putting “horns” on their other legal halves. And here in Paris I have now become entirely addicted to both these human vices, that is, to alcohol and, as you have said, to petticoat-chasing, and I run left and right, without any sane reasoning at all. And now, the satisfaction of both these vices is more necessary to me than the satisfaction of my hunger.

“’That is how it has all gone with me up to the present moment; and what will come next I do not know and do not care to know.

“’I always even try my best and struggle with myself not to think about it.’

“As he said these last words, he sincerely sighed and dejectedly dropped his head. I then asked him: