Gratitude is not a virtue I believe in, and to me it seems hypocritical to expect it from a child.

In the beginning was the myth.

The world, as it is now, wants to die, wants to perish — and it will.

Beautiful was this world, looking at it thus, without searching, thus simply, thus childlike.

Lovers should not separate from each other after making love without admiring each other, without being conquered as well as conquering, so that no feeling of satiation or desolation arises nor the horrid feeling of misusing or having been misused.

He had loved and he had found himself. Most people love to lose themselves.

I realize that some people will not believe that a child of little more than ten years is capable of having such feelings. My story is not intended for them. I am telling it to those who have a better knowledge of man. The adult who has learned to translate a part of his feelings into thoughts notices the absence of these thoughts in a child, and therefore comes to believe that the child lacks these experiences, too. Yet rarely in my life have I felt and suffered as deeply as at that time.