Its uprightness is what actually fascinates me. When this thought appears, memory is no longer present, nor uneasiness, nor weariness, nor foreboding, nor any recalling of yesterday, nor any plan for tomorrow. It appears, and perhaps it has appeared a thousand times, ten thousand times. What, then, could be more familiar to me? But familiarity is just what has disappeared forever between us. I look at it. It lives with me. It is in my house. Sometimes it begins to eat; sometimes, though rarely, it sleeps next to me. And I, a madman, fold my hands and let it eat its own flesh.
Maurice Blanchot, Death Sentence
