by
Italo Svevo
When he awoke he found that night was falling, one of those melancholy sunsets at the close of a lovely winter's day. He sat up on his bed. still undecided as to what he should do. Often he used to study at that hour, but now his books looked down from their shelves in vain. All those titles spoke of something dead and gone and quite incapable of making him forget for a single instant the painful life-struggle which was still being waged in his breast.