You took me in on dusky breath,
tasted me, tasted nothing,
gathered by my easy take
that I was oxygen enough
for idle inspiration.
How swiftly my lack became your
lack; my misgiving, your mistake.
Your eyes flashed a baffled
petition as you fell limp in a
thousand different doorways,
cribs, embraces, fits and fields,
but I pressed after whatever it was
I thought to find in [...]

I tell this story because it is the closest I can come to autobiography, i.e., that it is filled with indiscretions which reveal a good deal not about Sidney Tamond (as good a man as any we are likely to find again on the earth), but about myself. If there is one thing I hate [...]