During the last fortnight of Kant's life, he busied himself unceasingly
in a way that seemed not merely purposeless but self-contradictory.
Twenty times in a minute he would unloose and tie his neck
handkerchief--so also with a sort of belt which he wore about his
dressing-gown, the moment it was clasped, he unclasped it with
impatience, and was then equally impatient to have it clasped again.
But no description can convey an adequate impression of the weary
restlessness with which from morning to night he pursued these labors
of Sisyphus--doing and undoing--fretting that he could not do it,
fretting that he had done it.
By this time he seldom knew any of us who were about him, but took us
all for strangers. This happened first with his sister, then with me,
and finally with his servant. Such an alienation distressed me more
than any other instance of his decay: though I knew that he had not
really withdrawn his affection from me, yet his air and mode of
addressing me gave me constantly that feeling. So much the more
affecting was it, when the sanity of his perceptions and his
remembrances returned; but these intervals were of slower and slower
occurrence. In this condition, silent or babbling childishly, self-
involved and torpidly abstracted, or else busy with self-created
phantoms and delusions, what a contrast did he offer to _that_
Kant who had once been the brilliant centre of the most brilliant
circles for rank, wit, or knowledge, that Prussia afforded! A
distinguished person from Berlin, who had called upon him during the
preceding summer, was greatly shocked at his appearance, and said,
'This is not Kant that I have seen, but the shell of Kant!' How much
more would he have said this, if he had seen him now!
Now came February, 1804, which was the last month that Kant was
destined to see.
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