A Sport and a Pastime A Novel

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The summer has ended. The garden withers. The mornings become chill. I am thirty, I am thirty-four–the years turn dry as leaves. — 105

Great lovers lie in hell, the poet says. Even now, long afterwards, I cannot destroy the images. They remain within me like the yearnings of an addict. I need only hear certain words, see certain gestures, and my thoughts begin to tumble. I despise myself for thinking of her. Even if she were dead, I would feel the same. Her existence blackens my life. — 1274

Sometimes he is depressed by her imperfections. They should not be important, perhaps, but they often become so real, so ready to take control of her, these plain qualities hidden by the brilliance of a language and life the taste of which he has only just begun to grasp. — 1324

His devotion is complete; he is beginning to sense the confusion that arises from the first fears of what life would be like without her. He knows there can be such a thing, but like the answer to a difficult problem, he cannot imagine it. — 1562

THE MORE CLEARLY ONE sees this world, the more one is obliged to pretend it does not exist. — 2032