The inevitable progress of a love affair, Eitel thought. One began with the notion that life had found its flavour, and ended with the familiar distaste of no adventure and no novelty. It was one of the paradoxes he had cherished. The unspoken purpose of freedom was to find love, yet when love was found one could only desire freedom again. So it was. He had always seen it as a search. One went on, one passed from affair to affair, some good, some not, and each provided in its own way a promise of what could finally be found. How sad to finish the journey and fiscover that one was unchanged, that indeed one was worse; still another illusion was lost. He had merely succeeded in spoiling the memory of his old affairs.

The inevitable progress of a love affair, Eitel thought. One began with the notion that life had found its flavour, and ended with the famil...

The years pass into the years and we count our time in lonely private rhythms which have little to do with number or judgement or the uncertain shifting memory of friends.

The years pass into the years and we count our time in lonely private rhythms which have little to do with number or judgement or the uncert...

There was no pressure in all the world like the effort to beat off compassion. (...) once you knew that guilt was the cement of the world, there was nothing to it; you could own the world or spit at it. But first you had to get rid of your own guilt, and to do that you had to kill compassion. Compassion was the queen to guilt.

There was no pressure in all the world like the effort to beat off compassion. (...) once you knew that guilt was the cement of the world, t...