Now I no longer wish to be loved, beautiful, happy or successful. I want one thing and one thing only - to be left alone.

I took the red dress down and put it against myself. 'Does it make me look intemperate and unchaste?' I said.

I sit at my window and the words fly past me like birds — with God's help I catch some.

Yes, I am sad, sad as a circus-lioness, sad as an eagle without wings, sad as a violin with only one string and that one broken, sad as a woman who is growing old. Sad, sad, sad.

And what does anyone know about traitors, or why Judas did what he did?

I am empty of everything. I am empty of everything but the thin, frail ghosts in my room.

If all good, respectable people had one face, I'd spit in it.