All
his thoughts, worded and otherwise, seemed to crash in upon themselves
like the breaking of a wave, crushing and smothering every positive
impulse, every hopeful thought within him. He was back in the hopeless
world of his past, from which she had helped him to escape.
But there was no escape. No matter how he turned it around, no matter
what contingencies he tried to make and force himself to swallow, the
bitter truth remained. Without his woman he had nothing: no love, no
purpose, no home. No way to go on, and no reason to try. The ancient
sense of fatalism and betrayal returned to him, with still greater
intensity, because for a time he had been free. And the brief interval
of spoken words and close female companionship evaporated, could no
longer protect him from the silent, brutal worlds he had known. Again
he saw before him the long chain of savagery and violence, of endless
pain and pointless perseverance. All leading to this. To be broken and
alone, as only the last of a species is alone.
He too felt the razor, though dully. And his one regret in those
darkened moments was that he had been so skilled in eluding it.
*
'Forty-second street,' said William, continuing in the manner of a
tour through Hell. They stood at the base of a long, flat stretch, like
a sunken airport runway before them, the grassy dikes to either side
still suggestive of the tombs, the mass graves they barely covered.
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