In 1923 my first book, Crepusculario, appeared. I had setbacks and success every day, trying to pay for the first printing. I sold the few pieces of furniture O owned. The watch my father had sloemnly given me, on which he had had two little crossed flags enamelded, soon went ff to the pawnbroker's. My black poet's suit followed the watch. The printer was adamant, and in the end, when the edition was all ready and the covers had been pasted on, he said to me, with an evil look, "No. You are not taking a single copy until you pay me for the entire thing." The critic Alone generously contributed the last pesos, which were gobbled up by my printer, and off I went into the street carrying my books on my shoulder, with holes in my shoes, but beside myself with joy. Pablo Neruda, Memoirs, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1977, p. 49.