I speak to you, Madrid, as lover, husband, son.
Accept this human trinity of passion.
I love you, therefore I am faithful to you
And because to forget you would be to forget
Everything I love and value in the world.
Who is not true to you is false to every man
And he to whom your name means nothing never loved.
—Edwin Rolfe, “Elegia,” 1948
I had started out as a true believer, not a zealot. . . . But when I saw what was happening to the Jews in Europe, God’s Chosen People dragged off to concentration camps and slaughtered by the millions, I rebelled. I slammed the door of the tabernacle in His face and went in search of another God. Someone to help me in my fight with Adolf Hitler—someone like Karl Marx.