It Is The Lives We

She Was A Sweet Girl But Not Really Pretty, A Rough Sketch Of A Woman With A Little Of Everything In Her, One Of Those Silhouettes Which Artists Draw In Three Strokes On The Tablecloth In A Café After Dinner, Between A Glass Of Brandy And A Cigarette. Nature Sometimes Turns Out Creatures Like That.

The Only Certainty Is Death.

In Fact Living Is Dying.

I Go To Bed, And I Wait For Sleep As A Man Might Wait For The Executioner. I Wait For Its Coming With Dread, And My Heart Beats And My Legs Tremble, While My Whole Body Shivers Beneath The Warmth Of The Bedclothes, Until The Moment When I Suddenly Fall Asleep, As A Man Throws Himself Into A Pool Of Stagnant Water In Order To Drown. I Do Not Feel This Perfidious Sleep Coming Over Me As I Used To, But A Sleep Which Is Close To Me And Watching Me, Which Is Going To Seize Me By The Head, To Close My Eyes And Annihilate Me.

I Have Seen Mad People, And I Have Known Some Who Were Quite Intelligent, Lucid, Even Clear-sighted In Every Concern Of Life, Except On One Point. They Could Speak Clearly, Readily, Profoundly On Everything; Till Their Thoughts Were Caught In The Breakers Of Their Delusions And Went To Pieces There, Were Dispersed And Swamped In That Furious And Terrible Sea Of Fogs And Squalls Which Is Called Madness.