The Blind Owl

I wished that I could run away from myself.

In the fine rain which softened the intensity of the colours and the clarity of the outlines I experienced a sense of liberation and tranquillity.

It had become a habit with me to go out for a walk every day just before sunset.

My one fear is that tomorrow I may die without having come to know myself

There are people whose death agonies begin at the age of twenty, while others die only at the very end, calmly and peacefully, like a lamp in which all the oil has been consumed.

The thought of an afterlife frightened and fatigued me. No, I had no desire to see all these loathsome worlds peopled with repulsive faces. Was God such a parvenu that He insisted on my looking over His collection of worlds

IT WAS ALWAYS MY OPINION THAT THE BEST COURSE A man could take in life was to remain silent; that one could not do better than withdraw into solitude like the bittern which spreads its wings beside some lonely lake.

She wore on her lips a vague, involuntary smile as though she was thinking of someone who was absent.