The Journal of a Disappointed Man

October 30. Having developed a passion for a piece of sculpture by R. Boeltzig called the Reifenwerferin--the most beautiful figure of a woman. I am already devoted to Rodin's "Kiss" and have a photo of it framed in my bedroom. Have written to Bruciani's. I suspect that my growing appreciation of the plastic art is with me only distilled sensuality. I enjoy my morning bath for the same reason. My bath is a daily baptism. I revel in the pleasure of the pain of the cold water. I whistle gleefully because I am clean and cool and nude early in the morning with the sun still low, before the day has been stained by clothes, dirt, pain, exasperation, death.... How I love myself as I rub myself down!--the cool, pink skin--I could eat it! I want to be all day in a cold bath to enjoy the pain of mortifying the flesh--it is so beautiful, so soft, so inscrutable--if I cut out chunks of it, it would only bleed. November 8. The other morning R---- said hyperbolically that he hadn't slept all night for fear that, before he had time to put an arresting hand on my shoulder and say "Don't," I might have gone and become "Entangled." ... ... No, I'm as firm as a rock, my dear. But in imagination the affair was continued as follows,-- She: "I am fond of you, you know." He: "I wish you wouldn't say these things to me--they're quite embarrassing." She: "Oh! my dear, I'm not serious, you know--you're such a vain young man."