The MANIAC

he was not so much interested in the world as he was invaded by its many forms.

Meanwhile, Nelly said, artists had already fully embraced it; she believed that the rediscovery of the irrational was the driving force behind all vanguard movements, movements that, even to a lay observer, were evidently suffused with a Faustian, boundless energy, a haste, a tragic fall in which everything was permitted.

Cantor was born and raised in Russia, a nation whose inhabitants have become famous for their depth of feeling, the intensity of their religious and political beliefs, and a certain inclination for all things tragic,