“I looked at myself in the little mirror. My cheeks were flaming-red, my arms were sunburnt, but another sun had warmed them. The hot passions of those days flowed in my veins, I felt transfigured, old, wise, knowing a thousand things of which I had been barely conscious. Strangely moved by the knowledge that I was separated from that life by only the thinnest vapour, I went downstairs, my little watch ticking the minutes, awakened from its sleep.”