The truth is in the prologue. Death to the romantic fool, to the expert in solitary confinement, I'm the same at the teacher from... We all arrive by different streets, by unequal languages, at Silence.

Such a long, long way we have to go,
even farther from the stone masks
standing erect, in utter silence, and we'll go
wrapped in their pride, in their distance.

What brought us to the island?

It won't be the smile of flowering men,
or the crackling waist of lovely Kos,
or the boys on their motor bikes,
with their rude eyes,
that we'll take home with us;
just an oceanic emptiness,
a poor question 
with a thousand answers on
contemptuous lips.