Man on Fire

Forgiveness is between them and God. It's my job to arrange the meeting.

Hunger and necessity are poor teachers of morality. A society that cannot provide the basics of life does not get its laws obeyed.

Such women have to be self-centred. Eyes watch them, ears listen. If the character is strong enough to survive until the beauty fades, it may emerge independently; but such transitions are rare. The fading beauty is usually accompanied by a grievance that nature should take away what it had earlier bestowed.

Later, he lay back propped up against the pillow in the ornate four-poster. She had left the bed, naked, to go downstairs to fetch more cognac and cigarettes. He reflected that only after lovemaking did she spoil him so. She always led him when they made love. She directed and guided, but remained female- like a perfect dancer leading a less well-coordinated partner. Afterward he felt not drained but weakened. A violin overplayed, its strings slack. p13

Although, in this place, he had found happiness, he had lived long enough and hard enough to understand that to forget his purpose would mean the end of that happiness. He could not live on here with the thoughts of what he had turned away from.

Futile: it was an epitaph on his past and an adjective for his tomorrow.