So that when you left, Yvonne, I went to Oaxaca. There is no sadder world. Shall I tell you, Yvonne, of the terrible journey there through the desert over the narrow gauge railway on the rack of a third-class carriage bench, the child whose life its mother and I saved by rubbing its belly with tequila out of my bottle, or of how, when I went to my room in the hotel where we once were happy, the noise of slaughtering below in the kitchen drove me out into the glare of the street, and later, that night, there was a vulture sitting in the washbasin?
No se puede vivir sin amar: amar; Einzige Möglichkeit, der Hingabe Dauer zu geben, scheint die Dysfunktionalität der Situation zu sein. Und Yvonne schreibt ihm ja Briefe (dem Konsul? Lowry? Einem noch allgemeineren Adressaten?), die ihn nicht erreichen —
God, how pointless and empty the world is! Days filled with cheap and tarnished moments succeed each other, restless and haunted nights follow in bitter routine: the sun shines without brightness, and the moon rises without light. My heart has the taste of ashes, and my throat is tight and weary with weeping. What is a lost soul? It is one that has turned from its true path and is groping in the darkness of remembered ways —
[Prozession der großen Worte // und am Ende ist unsere Sünde, die großen Worte nicht zu füllen, in denen wir unsere sündhaften Sehnsüchte formulieren — Under the Volcano]