Unbearably sweet lips. (I suppose it was the taste of the liqueur.) It was as though burning poison were being poured into me, and more and more.⁠ ⁠…

I tore away from the earth and began revolving as an independent planet⁠—down⁠—down⁠—following an uncalculable curve.⁠ ⁠…

What happened next I am able to describe only in an approximate way, only by way of more or less corresponding analogies.

It never occurred to me before but it is true: we who live on the earth, we are always walking over a seething red sea of fire which is hidden in the womb of the earth. We never think of it. But imagine the ground under our feet suddenly transformed into a thin glass shell; suddenly we should behold⁠ ⁠… !