I must warn you, you must handle me delicately: I am covered with a mantle of iridescence as easily destroyed as a dust flower, and although I am quite willing to be arrested, if you handle me roughly you will lose much of the evidence. I don’t want you to taint that fragile coat of astonishing colours created by my illusions, which no painter has ever been able to reproduce.
— Anaïs Nin, from “A Spy in the House of Love” (British Book Centre, 1954)

























