I Need You, The Reader,

Pnin Slowly Walked Under Solemn Pines. The Sky Was Dying. He Did Not Believe In An Autocratic God. He Did Believe, Dimly, In A Democracy Of Ghosts. The Souls Of The Dead, Perhaps, Formed Committees, And These, In Continuous Session, Attended The Destinies Of The Quick.

After The First Shock Of Recognition - A Sudden Sense Of "this Is What I'm Going To Write" - The Novel Starts To Breed By Itself; The Process Goes On Solely In The Mind, Not On Paper. I Feel A Kind Of Gentle Development, An Uncurling Inside, And I Know That The Details Are There Already, That In Fact I Would See Them Plainly If I Looked Closer, But I Prefer To Wait Until What Is Loosely Called Inspiration Has Completed The Task For Me.

I Think It Is All A Matter Of Love.

Whatever His Secret Was, I Have Learnt One Secret Too, And Namely: That The Soul Is But A Manner Of Being - Not A Constant State - That Any Soul May Be Yours, If You Find And Follow Its Undulations. The Hereafter May Be The Full Ability Of Consciously Living In Any Chosen Soul, In Any Number Of Souls, All Of Them Unconscious Of Their Interchangeable Burden.

I Was The Shadow Of The Waxwing Slain By The False Azure In The Windowpane; I Was The Smudge Of Ashen Fluff -and I Lived On, Flew On, In The Reflected Sky. And From The Inside, Too, I'd Duplicate Myself, My Lamp, An Apple On A Plate: Uncurtaining The Night, I'd Let Dark Glass Hang All The Furniture Above The Grass, And How Delightful When A Fall Of Snow Covered My Glimpse Of Lawn And Reached Up So As To Make Chair And Bed Exactly Stand Upon That Snow, Out In That Crystal Land!