Naomi Press

The term 'bend sinister' means a heraldic bar or band drawn from the left side (and popularly, but incorrectly, supposed to denote bastardy). This choice of title was an attempt to suggest an outline broken by refraction, a distortion in the mirror of being, a wrong turn taken by life, a sinistral and sinister world. The title's drawback is that a solemn reader looking for 'general ideas' or 'human interest' (which is much the same thing) in a novel may be led to look for them in this one.

See you soon, my strange joy, my tender night.

You came into my life – not as one comes to visit (you know, ‘not taking one’s hat off’) but as one comes to a kingdom where all the rivers have been waiting for your reflection, all the roads, for your steps. Fate wanted to correct its mistake – as if it has asked my forgiveness for all of its previous deceptions. So how can I leave you, my fairy-tale, my sun?

I love this marvellous quickness in you, as if in your soul there’s a place prepared in advance for my every thought.

My darling, today I love you so sweetly, so joyfully – you don’t know how …

I dreamt of you last night – as if I was playing the piano and you were turning the pages for me …

My thick notebook with drafts will go to you – with a dedication in verse. Indirectly, in some meandering kind of way – like the story of the – you inspired me with this. Without you I wouldn’t have moved this way, to speak the language of flowers.

The thought that you exist is so divinely blissful in itself that it is ridiculous to talk about the everyday sadness of separation – a week’s, ten days’ – what does it matter?