Why writing my stories do I go into such helpless rages against myself?
Why am I guilty before great books?
Why does Jean-Christophe fling me in a fever of despair?

O, I see now …
I see my whole life tossed between conformity and art,
Between compliance with America's Gods, Success and Gentility,
And the fierce demand to be strong and courageous and free,
A true artist …

I have compromised, I have sold out to look well in my family's eyes,
For crumbs of praise from acquaintances and editors I have betrayed my gifts,
I have gone against my essential nature—and to what end?
Misery: my own, my wife's, my two sons' …

But I am caught:
It is too late, I am too fixed in my habits; my golden chance was given me and I flung it away:
I have not the courage nor the will:
And am I really an artist after all?

I walk about the streets thinking: perhaps thirty years more,
Thirty years more of a false life,
And then deserved oblivion …
One more frustrated talent, one more divine possibility corrupted and slain,
One more American life …