It Shone On Everyone, Whether They Had

I Will Tell You What Jeanne Was Like. She Was Like A Piano In A Country Where Everyone Has Had Their Hands Cut Off.

He Was Prepared To Die For It, As One Of Baudelaire's Dandies Might Have Been Prepared To Kill Himself In Order To Preserve Himself In The Condition Of A Work Of Art, For He Wanted To Make This Experience A Masterpiece Of Experience Which Absolutely Transcended The Everyday. And This Would Annihilate The Effects Of The Cruel Drug, Boredom, To Which He Was Addicted Although, Perhaps, The Element Of Boredom Which Is Implicit In An Affair So Isolated From The Real World Was Its Principle Appeal For Him.

I Am Entirely Alone. I And My Shadow Fill The Universe.

When I Saw Him Look At Me With Lust, I Dropped My Eyes But, In Glancing Away From Him, I Caught Sight Of Myself In The Mirror. And I Saw Myself, Suddenly, As He Saw Me, My Pale Face, The Way The Muscles In My Neck Stuck Out Like Thin Wire. I Saw How Much That Cruel Necklace Became Me. And, For The First Time In My Innocent And Confined Life, I Sensed In Myself A Potentiality For Corruption That Took My Breath Away.

Reading A Book Is Like Re-writing It For Yourself. You Bring To A Novel, Anything You Read, All Your Experience Of The World. You Bring Your History And You Read It In Your Own Terms.