...of All The Kinds Of Decay In

I Cried Sobbingly Until At Last Those Visions Reeking With Blood Came To Comfort Me. And Then I Surrendered Myself To Them, To Those Deplorably Brutal Visions, My Most Intimate Friends.

This Is A Photograph, So It Is As You See: There Are No Lies And No Deceptions. One Can Detect Here, Elevated To An Incomparably Higher Level, The Same Pathetic Emotional Appeal That Lies Concealed In Every Fake Spiritualist Photograph, Every Pornographic Photograph; One Comes To Suspect That The Strange, Disturbing Emotional Appeal Of The Photographic Art Consists Solely In That Same Repeated Refrain: This Is A True Ghost... This Is A Photograph, So It Is As You See: There Are No Lies, No Deceptions.

What I Wanted Was To Die Among Strangers, Untroubled, Beneath A Cloudless Sky. And Yet My Desire Differed From The Sentiments Of That Ancient Greek Who Wanted To Die Under The Brilliant Sun. What I Wanted Was Some Natural, Spontaneous Suicide. I Wanted A Death Like That Of A Fox, Not Yet Well Versed In Cunning, That Walks Carelessly Along A Mountain Path And Is Shot By A Hunter Because Of Its Own Stupidity.

We Had Stretched Out Our Arms To Each Other And Supported Something In Our Joined Hands, But This Thing We Were Holding Was Like A Sort Of Gas That Exists When You Believe In Its Existence And Disappears When You Doubt. The Task Of Supporting It Seems Simple At First Glance, But Actually Requires An Ultimate Refinement Of Calculation And A Consummate Skill.

...of All The Kinds Of Decay In This World, Decadent Purity Is The Most Malignant.