920
PARTISAN REVIEW
let it go at that. From the time I denuded her folly, and she was un–
able or disinclined to retaliate, it was clear that we were through. I
can't really explain
it.
All the solicitude of last Easter, of the whole
August I spent
in
the
city
heat, rooming in Indianapolis because I
knew there could be no other image as incandescent as she-all that
could not restore us to what we had been. 'We were done from that
New Year's Eve and the rest has been only pain. Those tumultuous
years we grew together she was woven inextricably into my flesh,
woven as no other could ever be. And now I shall never see her again,
never.
It is only three quarters of an hour till dinner time, when
r
will
wretchedly savor my food mouthful by mouthful in the restaurant
din. I could go to a movie before returning to the empty boarding
house (they have left for the train, one by one, all day long, and I
am the last who remains) but there's never anything playing. The
air wakens me, I feel fresh, though never have I been more forlorn
than now in this dark universe, this heap of dead rocks, this grotes–
querie of brick buildings, snowy forests, white seas, and all the rest.
Though genial fall is gone, the only thing left to do is the long walk
up Brattle Hill in the snow and under the stars, past the shuttered
houses set far back from the street. There my sole joy will be to scale
the tensions of my grief like a concerto, pure wanderer in the winter
cold, explorer moving past the milestones of failure to the dead end of
time.
