“Who has not sat, afraid, before his heart's curtain?”

“Who has not sat before his own heart's curtain? It lifts: and the scenery is falling apart.”

“His tired gaze - from passing endless bars -has turned into a vacant stare which nothing holds.to him there seem to be a thousand bars,and out beyond these bars exists no world.his supple gait, the smoothness of strong stridesthat gently turn in ever smaller circlesperform a dance of strength, centered deep withina will, stunned, but untamed, indomitable.but sometimes the curtains of his eyelids part,the pupils of his eyes dilate as imagesof past encounters enter while through his limbsa tension strains in silenceonly to cease to be, to die within his heart.[the panther]”

“His vision, from the constantly passing bars,has grown so weary that it cannot holdanything else. It seems to him there area thousand bars, and behind the bars, no world.As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,the movement of his powerful soft stridesis like a ritual dance around a centerin which a mighty will stands paralyzed.Only at times, the curtain of the pupilslifts, quietly. An image enters in,rushes down through the tense, arrested muscles,plunges into the heart and is gone.”

“And when suddenlythe god stopped her and, with anguish in his cry,uttered the words: ‘He has turned round’ –she comprehended nothing and said softly: ‘Who?”

“In this there is no measuring with time, a year doesn’t matter, and ten years are nothing. Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn’t force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast. I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain I am grateful for: patience is everything!”

“But not you, O girl, nor yet his mother,stretched his eyebrows so fierce with expectation.Not for your mouth, you who hold him now,did his lips ripen into these fervent contours.Do you really think your quiet footstepscould have so convulsed him, you who move like dawn wind?True, you startled his heart; but older terrorsrushed into him with that first jolt to his emotions.Call him . . . you'll never quite retrieve him from those dark consorts.Yes, he wants to, he escapes; relieved, he makes a homein your familiar heart, takes root there and begins himself anew.But did he ever begin himself?”