And he looked at me in such a way that I felt it in the pit of my stomach, And the flame of confusion mounted to my cheeks. Grant that he may return with a glorious victory. THE FIFTH WATCHER: And then what will you do? THE FOURTH WATCHER: O I shall live in joy! Holding my face to the sun, holding my hands to the rain! THE FIFTH WATCHER: Listen to him! You will live in joy, will you, carrion? Listen to what he says! And already he has forgotten what he said a moment since and remembers it no more. You will live in joy? But I tell you that you are already dead and life has departed from you and that you weep because the man is at hand who will drive you from your place! Do not hope! For I say to you that the sword is loosed against you and it will not rest till it has devoured you, sweeping you from before the face of the sun. Like the plague upon the poultry, like the pestilence upon the pigs, the sword has come upon you! This I see and exult. Let me perish beneath the sword! I do not wish to live in joy. Where is the joy in life? But I long to die, like a man that has been flayed. Fools! 'Tis enough for you that cozening life anoints your lips with its greasy thumb. But nothing will keep me from dying of the malady of death Unless I lay hold on joy, like a thing that one grasps with one hand and tears with the other, Making no scrutiny or examination, And put it in my mouth like an everlasting food, and like a fruit that one crushes between the teeth, so that the juice gushes down the throat! Alas for me! There is a shadow upon me. And I know that there is something here invisible to my eyes. For we have come to the end of things. Man has worked and has not rested from labor; he has worked the livelong day from the morning until the evening, he has worked the whole of the night, And seven days a week, and his work has taken form. He pants and perhaps he wishes to rest. But his work is alive under him and it does not wish to stop. And he has become its slave, for he is snared by the feet And trapped by the hands and no longer can he turn his eyes away. And at last they loosen him that he may die on the ground, And, drowned in night and utter wretchedness, alone and stretched in his dung, he gazes upward, Like the drunkard sprawled in the gutter, staring with bleary eyes at the star of February in the pallid western sky. And his eyes are like those of a little child and there is surprise in them. So.... THE FIRST WATCHER: So what? THE THIRD WATCHER: Let him alone, he is choking. THE FIFTH WATCHER: I tell you that you are captives who cannot be delivered. And the stone is sealed above you; it is sealed and firmly cemented and bound with iron bands. We are shut in this secret place with a flickering lamp in our midst. Shall I not be permitted to spit against the walls of my prison? And after that I shall drop my head on my breast and my heart will break of sorrow.