10. A. has a very high opinion of himself. He believes he is far advanced in virtue because he feels that, as an increasingly attractive target, he is exposed to an increasing number of temptations from directions previously unknown to him. But the true explanation is that a great devil has taken up residence within him, and the monstrous number of

but everything remained unchanged, the*

Perhaps I am in someone else’s burrow, I thought, and now the owner is digging towards me.

I have always taken too many breaks—

It probably pushes its snout into the earth with a single great thrust, and tears up a huge clod; in this time I hear nothing; this is the interval; but then it draws its breath once more for a fresh thrust; this inhalation of air, which must make an earth-shattering row, not only on account of the beast’s strength but also on account of its speed

You listen no longer; you leap up, your whole life turns upside down; it is almost like the opening up of the source from which there flows the silence of the burrow.

Indeed, in fairy-tales everything is done on the wing, and my consolation belongs to fairy-tales too.

I sometimes had the childish wish never to return to the burrow at all, but settle down here near the entrance, spend my life observing the entrance, and find my happiness in constantly reminding myself of how soundly the burrow, if I were inside it, would keep me safe.

The soil had to be practically hammered firm so as to shape the large, beautifully vaulted and rounded space. But for work of that kind I have only my forehead. So thousands and thousands of times, night and day, with my forehead I ran and butted the earth, I was happy if I pounded it till the blood flowed, for that was some proof that the wall was