And now, just see what had come to me! The fact was, I did not know myself, did not possess for myself any reality of my own, but was in a state of constant semi-fluid, semi-malleable fusion; others knew me, each after his own fashion, in accordance with that reality which they had conferred upon me; which is to say, they saw in me a Moscarda that was not I, inasmuch as I, properly speaking, was no one to myself; there were as many Moscardas as there were other individuals, and all of them were more real than I, who had, I repeat, no reality whatsoever so far as I myself was concerned.
