I Call The Discourse Of

One Day, Quite Some Time Ago, I Happened On A Photograph Of Napoleon’s Youngest Brother, Jerome, Taken In 1852. And I Realized Then, With An Amazement I Have Not Been Able To Lessen Since: ‘i Am Looking At Eyes That Looked At The Emperor.’ Sometimes I Would Mention This Amazement, But Since No One Seemed To Share It, Nor Even To Understand It (life Consists Of These Little Touches Of Solitude), I Forgot About It.

I Want A History Of Looking. For The Photograph Is The Advent Of Myself As Other: A Cunning Dissociation Of Consciousness From Identity. Even Odder: It Was Before Photography That Men Had The Most To Say About The Vision Of The Double. Heautoscopy Was Compared With An Hallucinosis; For Centuries This Was A Great Mythic Theme.

Thus Every Writer's Motto Reads: Mad I Cannot Be, Sane I Do Not Deign To Be, Neurotic I Am.

Flaubert Had Infinite Correction To Perform.

He Who Reads A Story Only Once Is Condemned To Read The Same Story His Whole Life.