Italy is a dream that keeps returning for the rest of your life.

A choir of angels glorified the hour, the vault of heaven was dissolved in fire. "Father, why hast Thou forsaken me? Mother, I beg you, do not weep for me.

As the future ripens in the past, so the past rots in the future -- a terrible festival of dead leaves.

Your voice is wild and simple. You are untranslatable Into any one tongue.

The word landed with a stony thud Onto my still-beating breast. Nevermind, I was prepared, I will manage with the rest. I have a lot of work to do today; I need to slaughter memory, Turn my living soul to stone Then teach myself to live again. . . But how. The hot summer rustles Like a carnival outside my window; I have long had this premonition Of a bright day and a deserted house.

This cruel age has deflected me, like a river from this course. Strayed from its familiar shores, my changeling life has flowed into a sister channel. How many spectacles I've missed: the curtain rising without me, and falling too. How many friends I never had the chance to meet.

We are all carousers and loose women here; How unhappy we are together!