A sense of security, of well-being, of summer warmth pervades my memory. That robust reality makes a ghost of the present. The mirror brims with brightness; a bumblebee has entered the room and bumps against the ceiling. Everything is as it should be, nothing will ever change, nobody will ever die.

It is strange how a memory will grow into a wax figure, how the cherub grows suspiciously prettier as its frame darkens with age-strange, strange are the mishaps of memory.

Was she really beautiful? Was she at least what they call attractive? She was exasperation, she was torture.

Look at this tangle of thorns.

The summer night was starless and stirless, with distant spasms of silent lightning.

I mean, I have the feeling that something in my mind is poisoning everything else.

Burn pedants in pale fire. Accept no fashions. Be your own fashion. Do not rely on earlier triumphs. Be new at each appearance.