We mixed in the doll, as if in a test-tube, everything we were experiencing and could not recognize. We watched it change color there and come to the boil. That is, we invented this too. The doll was so utterly devoid of imagination that what we imagined for it was inexhaustible. For hours, for weeks on end, we must have been content to lay the first fine silk of our hearts in folds around this immobile mannequin, but I have to believe there were certain abysmally long afternoons when our twofold inspirations petered out and we suddenly sat in front of it, expecting some response.

— Rainer Maria Rilke, “The Unfortunate Fate of Childhood Dolls”

. . . but I have to believe there were certain abysmally long afternoons when our twofold inspirations petered out and we suddenly sat in front of it, expecting some response.

Rainer Maria Rilke, “The Unfortunate Fate of Childhood Dolls” (Paris Review blog)
The Replacements, “Sadly Beautiful” (2008 Remaster)