"Bring whiskey-soda."
"Yes Bwana."
"You shouldn't," she said.
"That's what I mean by giving
up. It says it's
bad for you. I know it's bad for
you."
"No," he said. "It's good for
me."
So now it was all over, he
thought. So now he would
never have a chance
to finish it. So this was the way
it ended, in a bickering over a
drink. Since
the gangrene started in his right
leg he had no pain and with the
pain the
horror had gone and all he felt
now was a great tiredness and
anger that this was the end of
it. For this, that now was
coming, he had very little
curiosity.
For years it had obsessed him;
but now it meant nothing in
itself. It was
strange how easy being tired
enough made it.
Now he would never write the
things that he had saved to
write until he knew enough to
write them well. Well, he
would not have to fail at trying
to write them either. Maybe
you could never write them,
and that was why you put them
off and delayed the starting.
Well he would never know,
now.
"I wish we'd never come," the
woman said. She was looking
at him holding the glass and
biting her lip. "You never
would have gotten anything
like this in Paris. You always
said you loved Paris. We could
have stayed in Paris or gone
anywhere. I'd have gone
anywhere. I said I'd go
anywhere you wanted. If you
wanted to shoot we could have
gone shooting in Hungary and
been comfortable."
JOY FEELINGS | DECEMBER ISSUE
253