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James K. Baxter Complete Prose Volume 1

[Biography]

[Biography]

Once I had no body. Alone in a desolate palace I admired the various tapestries showing stag-hunts, lovers intertwined, and crucifixions; or I looked out of my tower window waiting for Prince Charming. Sometimes I would cry softly, watching my face in a mirror.

In my great innocence I imagined myself a sinner; would fall asleep to the sound of mourning winds and waken with a terrible lassitude.

Then came the time when the mosaics broke. Lions burst into the chapel; stone steps leading down appeared in a meadow, under autumn leaves. I walked through to a foul crypt – so on to the world of men.

Since that time I have enjoyed many adventures. I have murdered, borne false witness, and slept in adulterous beds. Nor am I ashamed. Nature, the old whore, is my dearest confidant. She laughs when I spit in the eyes of authority and rewards me with liquor, ardent girls fresh from baths – and the energy to awake refreshed. She refuses me nothing. If I wish it I can find poems hidden under my pillow, banknotes in the tracks of cattle, elixirs in empty glasses.

Why do I value then so greatly the one thing it is not in her power to give? That blinding shaft which makes the whole world seem butterfly dust, my desires mediocre, my ambitions trivial, my rebellion a mere stupidity. It is pure pain, the soul for which I would sell my body.

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