Now I am an outcast. I loathe my country. The best thing for me is a drunken sleep on the beach.

True alchemy lies in this formula: ‘Your memory and your senses are but the nourishment of your creative impulse’.

O witches, O misery, O hate, to you has my treasure been entrusted! I contrived to purge my mind of all human hope. On all joy, to strangle it, I pounced with the strength of a wild beast. I called to the plagues to smother me in blood, in sand, misfortune was my God.

Oh! If only we were naked now, and free to watch our protruding parts align; To whisper - both of us - in ecstasy!

And I am still alive-what though, my damnation is eternal. A man who deliberately mutilates himself is truly damned, is he not? I believe that I am in hell, therefore I am.

I shed more tears than God could ever have required.

What am I doing here?