Talk of the Heart — Perplexity

Night in its dread silence... and the black darkness creeps its slow creeping into my room, and settles heavy upon my breast... and strangles the joy fluttering in my heart — even that glittering star that rises in my life and sweeps the clouds from my path, the darkness has covered it and blinded its eyes!

Is it with this cruelty that you wring my heart, O desolation, leaving in it not a last remnant of life?

And you, O heart, what business have you with me? Are you anything to me but a wasteland from which a monotonous tune rises, whose blazing heat withers the dewy grasses? How much pent-up freshness lies behind your outward dryness?!

And what talk shall I carry from you today, O my heart?

Is it the talk of love — that shakes people, all people, now and in every season?

Is it the talk of the violet dropping its seed where it was planted, to send forth tomorrow a second violet, stronger in life and youth?

Or is it the talk of fate, cackling in our ears the songs of its biting mockery?

Speak, my heart... say something... answer with a single word, and then return to your suspect silence — or else I will tear you out this very hour, pull your roots from my breast, and fling you from my window into the darkness... into nothingness!