turning the calendar

During the attacks I feel a coward before the pain and suffering . . . and it may be this vey cowardice which, whereas I had no desire to get better before, makes me eat like two now, work hard, limit my relations with the other patients for fear of a relapse - I am now trying to recover like a man who meant to commit sucide and, finding the water too cold, tries to regain the bank.
. . . I reproach myself with my cowardice, I should have defended my studio, even if I had had to fight with the police and the neighbours. Others in my place would have used a revolver, and certainly if as an artist one had killed such rollers, one would have been acquitted. - St. Remy , July 1889