A re-arranged cento list-poem of “half-talk, phrases” underlined & lifted from Anaïs Nin's first published work of fiction, a dreamlike-nightmare novella about a woman's saison en enfer. †

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• water veiled
  • bells of the Atlantide
    • inside a sea-diamond
      • inexorable diamond sunlight
• I am the keeper of fragile things
  • half-talk & phrases
    • Melisande's hair falling over the balcony †
• Le pas d'acier... †
  • pomegranate spurting blood
    • acid revealing an invisible script
• Le pas d'acier... †
  • violent deviations
    • [the] terror and joy of murders accomplished in silence
• Le pas d'acier... †
  • the weight of brocades
    • the drug made fine incisions
• Le pas d'acier... †
  • reflections in cracked mirrors
    • broken glass will cut & the wheel crush
• Le pas d'acier... †
  • dangerous ecstasies
    • Laughter precedes hysteria.
• Le pas d'acier... †
  • The dream! The dream!
    • the deafening sound of bells
• Le pas d'acier... †
  • [the] forest must weep
    • nostalgic for the shivering of leaves
• the horror of obscenity
  • I am in terror of my ascensions
    • the silken passage of radiations
      • unrolled like a crimson bride
        • kissing, without hope of reality
• I want absolution
  • melted jewels [...] alchemized...
    • sunlight was an orchestra
      • out of ammonia crystals came the angels
        • dancing towards daylight.

A short film by the author's husband depicts the book's outset, an underwater Edenic dream narrated by Nin's Gallic accent over an experimental soundtrack. The book also inspired Henry Miller's literary treatment, Scenario: A Film with Sound.