Though They May Not Always Be Handsome

I Leave You Free To Imagine Any Dialogue You Please. Choose Whatever May Charm You. Have It, If You Like, That They Hear The Voice Of The Blood, Or That They Fall In Love At First Sight... Conceive The Wildest Improbabilities. Have It That The Depths Of Their Beings Are Thrilled At Accosting Each Other In Slang. Tangle Them Suddenly In A Swift Embrace Or A Brotherly Kiss. Do Whatever You Like.

Limited By The World, Which I Oppose, Jagged By It, I Shall Be All The More Handsome And Sparkling As The Angles Which Wound Me And Give Me Shape Are More Acute And The Jagging More Cruel.

When I Beheld You, Suddenly - For Perhaps A Second - I Had The Strength To Reject Everything That Wasn't You And To Laugh At The Illusion. But My Shoulders Are Very Frail. I Was Unable To Bear The Weight Of The World's Condemnation. And I Began To Hate You When Everything About You Would Have Kindled My Love And When Love Would Have Made Men's Contempt Unbearable, And Their Contempt Would Have Made My Love Unbearable. The Fact Is, I Hate You.

I Wanted To Swallow Myself By Opening My Mouth Very Wide And Turning It Over My Head So That It Would Take In My Whole Body, And Then The Universe, Until All That Would Remain Of Me Would Be A Ball Of Eaten Thing Which Little By Little Would Be Annihilated: That Is How I See The End Of The World.

I Give The Name Violence To A Boldness Lying Idle And Enamored Of Danger.