Sublime

squatting with her bent knees cloaked by the calico pinafore.

He launched the chair into the water, careful not to splash his pink shirt and white trousers. “You must put it away every night,” he said. “The gypsies will be here soon for the cherry picking. They’ll steal anything.” It was a reminder that we had been intending to get some insurance arranged for the house, but with the builders making holes in t

“Not married exactly—” he said, “but bred by the Martians—like farm animals.”

For his evening reading he stuffed into his briefcase a narrative by an old hunter in the Southwest who had fought Apaches.

Throughout the civilized world, from Battery Park to Fulton Street, he was known as a dependable man for a fast tax write-off.

Peter Autier was from the small town of Ax-les-Thermes, up-country from Foix. He was born around 1240, and had made a comfortable life for himself as a notary.

A man is not a good man to me because he will feed me if I should be starving, or warm me if I should be freezing, or pull me out of a ditch if I should ever fall into one. I can find you a Newfoundland dog that will do as much. Philanthropy is not love for one’s fellow-man in the broadest sense.

I wish I could feed the fish, he thought. He is my brother. But I must kill him and keep strong to do it.