We live by action—by acting on desire. Those of us who don't know how to want—whether geniuses or beggars—are related by impotence.

Friends: not one. Just a few acquaintances who imagine they feel something for me and who might be sorry if a train ran over me and the funeral was on a rainy day.

Every spoken word double-crosses us. The written word is the only tolerable form of communication, as it isn't a stone in a bridge between souls but a ray of light between stars.

I had the same sensation as when we watch someone sleep. When asleep we all become children again. Perhaps because in the state of slumber we can do no wrong and are unconscious of life, the greatest criminal and most self- absorbed egotist are holy, by a natural magic, as long as they're sleeping. For me there's no discernible difference between killing a child and killing a sleeping man.

For a long time now I haven't existed. I'm utterly calm. No one distinguishes me from who I am. I just felt myself breath as if I'd done something new, or done it late. I'm beginning to be conscious of being conscious. Perhaps tomorrow I will wake up to myself and resume the course of my existence. I don't know if that will make more happy or less. I don't know anything.

All of this passes, and none of it means anything to me.It's all foreign to my fate, and even to fate as a whole. It'sjust unconsciousness, curses of protest when chance hurlsstones, echoes of unknown voices - a collectivemishmash of life.

Inch by inch I conquered the inner terrain I was born with. Bit by bit I reclaimed the swamp in which I'd languished. I gave birth to my infinite being, but I had to wrench myself out of me with forceps.