When The Young Woman Leans Over The

Everybody Knows How Fallible Memory Can Sometimes Be. You Remember Certain Fragments Precisely, But As Soon As You Try To Join The Fragments Together, For A Story, There Is A Certain - Not Falsification, But A Shifting.

Often I Had To Imagine The Things I Needed. I Learned Very Early To Read Amidst Noise. And So I Started Writing And Drawing At An Early Age.

I Wept When The Muse Ulla Bent Over Me. Blinded By Tears I Could Not Prevent Her From Kissing Me, I Could Not Prevent The Muse From Giving Me That Terrible Kiss. All Of You Who Have Ever Been Kissed By The Muse Will Surely Understand That Oskar, Once Branded By That Kiss, Was Condemned To Take Back The Drum He Had Rejected Years Before, The Drum He Had Buried In The Sand Of Sapse Cemetery.

If Work And Leisure Are Soon To Be Subordinated To This One Utopian Principle - Absolute Busyness - Then Utopia And Melancholy Will Come To Coincide: An Age Without Conflict Will Dawn, Perpetually Busy - And Without Consciousness.

The Job Of A Citizen Is To Keep His Mouth Open.