I am in an enormous ornate white gorgeous hotel which is on fire, doomed, but the fire is burning so slowly that people are still allowed to come and go freely. I can't see the fire but smoke hangs thinly everywhere especially around the lights. It is terribly pretty. I am in a hurry and I want to photograph most awfully. I go to our rooms to get what I must save and I cannot find it whatever it is.... I do not know ... how soon the building will collapse.... Maybe I don't even have film or can't find my camera.... Everyone is busy and wandering around.... The elevators are golden.... My whole life is there. It is a sort of calm but painfully blocked ecstasy like when a baby is coming and the attendants ask you to hold back because they aren't ready. I am almost overcome with delight but plagued by the interruptions of it. There are cupids carved in the ceilings.... I am strangely alone although people are all around. They keep disappearing. ... It is like an emergency in slow motion. I am in the eye of the storm
DIANE ARBUS