Once, if my memory serves me well, my life was a banquet where every 
heart revealed itself,where every wine flowed.

One evening I took Beauty in my arms-- and I thought her bitter-- 
and I insulted her.

I steeled myself against justice.

I fled. O witches, O misery, O hate, my treasure was left in your 
care...

I have withered within me all human hope. With the silent leap of a 
sullen beast, I have downed and strangled every joy.

I have called for executioners; I want to perish chewing on their gun 
butts. I have called for plagues, to suffocate in sand and blood. 
Unhappiness has been my god. I have lain down in the mud, and dried 
myself off in the crime-infested air. I have played the fool to the 
point of madness.

And springtime brought me the frightful laugh of an idiot.

Now recently, when I found myself ready to croak! I thought to seek 
the key to the banquet of old, where I might find an appetite again.

That key is Charity. (This idea proves I was dreaming!)

"You will stay a hyena, etc....," shouts the demon who once crowned me 
with such pretty poppies. "Seek death with all your desires, and all 
selfishness, and all the Seven Deadly Sins."

Ah, I've taken too much of that; still, dear Satan, don't look so 
annoyed, I beg you! And while waiting for a few belated cowardices, 
since you value in a writer all lack of descriptive or didactic flair, 
I pass you these few foul pages from the diary of a Damned Soul.