Summary

Reflecting on the nature of suffering, the narrator wonders whether it is better to experience “uniform suffering,” or one that is subject to “ups and downs,” which inevitably make one feel sometimes that “perhaps after all it is not eternal” (360). Concluding that the latter might be worth it to relieve monotony, he notes that his masters are doing the best they can to keep him in this state indefinitely. He claims he has “always been in a dungeon,” listening to their voices, which never stop; he wishes he had a companion with him that is also “condemned to talk,” but assumes his keepers would not surprise him with someone else’s presence (362). All he can do, the narrator claims, is speculate about his situation, though he acknowledges that anything he says has been put into his mind by his keepers. He expresses a desire...