(He undresses, dresses and stares at his reflection with longing).
One breaks the spell of his reflection with a hoof and, struggling, begins to cross.
I was the kind of man who spent as little time as possible in front of mirrors, the kind of man who had a brisk and practical relation to his reflection, with its tired eyes, its disappointed shoulders, its look of defeat.
At a Guardian Live event for his latest book Sweet Caress he spoke to critic Alex Clark about his career, peppering his reflections with advice for would-be writers.
A dialogue he has with his reflection in a pond courses with invective and self-disgust.
After remarking that his reflections, along with his dinner, have given him indigestion, Sturges says he'll "ingest a little Maalox … and hope to God I don't croak".
Lopes brings a scholar's mind to his reflections, beginning with historical overviews of Catholic teaching on sin, grace, and the nature of God, before taking a scriptural journey with Jesus from his sojourn in the desert to his death and resurrection.
Everyone is gunning for the heirs of that ancient misfit, Narcissus, who fell in love with his reflection and screwed up Echo's personal life for eternity.
You probably already know this, but every morning, adult-contempo British prime minister David Cameron combs in his side parting, adjusts his tie and jives with his reflection in the bathroom mirror while singing: "I've got the moves like Jagger, I've got the moves like Jagger, I've got the mo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-ooves like Jagger".
"We forgive Muhammad Ali his excesses," an Ali biographer, Dave Kindred, wrote, "because we see in him the child in us, and if he is foolish or cruel, if he is arrogant, if he is outrageously in love with his reflection, we forgive him because we no more can condemn him than condemn a rainbow for dissolving into the dark.
