Kokoro. Natsume Soseki.

Soseki wrote Kokoro in 1914, two years after the death of Emperor Meiji, and two years before his own death. It was written at the peak of his career, when his reputation as a novelist was already established. In it, as in all his other important novels, Soseki is concerned with man's loneliness in the modern world. It is in one of his other novels that the protagonist cries out: "How can I escape, except through faith, madness, or death?" And for Sensei, the protagonist of Kokoro, the only means of escape from his loneliness is death.