À procura de um texto autobiográfico (28).

I was slightly surprised to find it in my English Dictionary: "1. An acute but unspecific sense of anxiety or remorse. 2. (In Existentialist philosophy) the dread caused by man's awareness that his future is not determined, but must be freely chosen." I didn't fully understand the second definition - philosophy is one of the bigger blank spots in my education. But I felt a little shiver of recognition at the word "dread". It sounds more like what I suffer than "anxiety". Anxiety sounds trivial, somehow. You can feel anxious about catching a train, or missing the post. I suppose that's why we've borrowed the German word. Angst has a sombre resonance to it, and you make a kind of grimace of pain as you pronounce it. But "Dread" is good. Dread is what I feel when I wake in the small hours in a cold sweat. Acute but unspecific Dread.

[ David Lodge: Therapy. ]