I will have baked fish, and I will drink Nostrano out of a thick glass, and draw slowly on long cigars, and spit into the glowing fireplace, think about my mother, and try to press a few drops of sweetness out of my anxiety and sorrow. Then I will lie down in the inadequate bed beside the thin wall, listen to wind and rain, struggle with the beating of my heart, wish for death, fear death, call out to God. Until it is all over, until doubt wears itself out, until something like sleep and consolation beckons to me. So it was when I was twenty years old, so it is today, and so it will go on, until it ends. Always, over and over, I will have to pay for my loved and lovely life with days like these. Always, over and over, these days and nights will come, the anxiety, the aversion, the doubt. And I will still live, and I will still love life.