From Alberto Moravia's "Boredom"

Believe it or not, I was magically transported from 1 PM to 3 PM today -- via Moravia's Boredom, or was it something more -- and thus passed through the fires of a gruelling day.

*

Perhaps he had indeed been a sort of madman, but he was a madman whose madness consisted in an illusion of having a relationship with reality, that is, of being a wise man, as his paintings bore witness, whereas I -- as I could not help saying to myself -- was possibly a wise man whose wisdom consisted, on the contrary, in a profound conviction that such a relationship was impossible, that is, a wise man who believed himself mad.

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