that sinister bloodcurdling, deep-probing, lashing look. It was a hangman’s look, a look like the contact of sexual organs
- M. Ageyev, Novel With Cocaine, 1929 (?) translated from the Russian by Michael Henry Hein (Picador 1985)
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“I would stroll down the boulevards and try to catch the eye of every passing woman. I never, as the saying goes, ‘undressed them’ with my glance, nor did I feel any carnal desire for them. In that feverish state, which might have inspired another, say to write poetry, I would simply stare into the eyes of all women walking in the other direction and wait for a similarly terrifying, wide-eyed look in response. I never accosted a woman who responded with a smile, because I knew that anyone who smiled at a look like mine could only be a prostitute or a virgin.”