“There is much more strength in a man who reveals himself only when it is necessary. I have suffered from being alone, but because I have been able to keep my secret I have overcome the suffering of loneliness … And, today, there is no greater joy than to live alone and unknown. My deepest joy is to write. To accept the world and to accept pleasure—but only when I am stripped bare of everything. I should not be worthy to love the bare and empty beaches if I could not remain naked in the presence of myself. For the first time I can understand the meaning of the word happiness without any ambiguity. It is a little different from what men normally mean when they say: I am happy. A certain persistence in despair finally gives birth to joy… And if I now feel that I have come to a turning point in my life, this not because of what I have won but because of what I have lost. Within me, I feel a deep and intense strength that will enable me to live as I intend. If, today, I feel so distant from everything, it is because I have strength only to love and to admire. Life with its face of tears and sun, life in the salt sea and on warm stones, life as I love and understand it—as I caress it I feel my love and despair gathering strength within me. Today is not like a resting place between ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ It is both ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ ‘No,’ and rebellion against everything which is not tears and sunlight. ‘Yes’ to my life, whose future promise I now feel within myself for the first time.”
