The Pigeon

...he came to the conclusion that you cannot depend on people, and that you can live in peace only if you keep them at arm's length.

How quickly the apparently solidly laid foundation of one's existence could crumble.

...if you could not close a door behind you to take a shit in the city - even if it was just the door to a shared toilet - if this one, most essential freedom was taken away from you, the freedom, that is, to withdraw from other people when necessity called, then all other freedoms were worthless. Then life had no more meaning. Then it would be better to be dead.

And finally - he was neither able nor willing to prevent it - the self-loathing dammed up inside him spilled over and gushed out, gushed out of glaring eyes that grew ever grimmer, angrier, beneath the rim of his cap, flooding the outside world as perfect, vulgar hate.

With one glance he had got himself trapped in the brown fundament of her eyes, he was in danger of sinking, as if into a soft, brown swamp, and he had to close his own eyes for a second to get out of it..

No human being can go on living in the same house with a pigeon, a pigeon is the epitomy of chaos and anarchy, a pigeon that whizzes around unpredictably, that sets it's claws in you, picks at your eyes..

He had a mighty urge to pull out his pistol and let loose in every directon, right into the coffeehouse, smack through it's glass windows, till there was nothing but crashing and tinkling, right into the middle of the ruck of cars or simply into the middle of one of the gigantic buildings across the way, those ugly, tall, menacing buildings, or into the air, straight up, into the heavens, yes, into the hot sky, into the horrible, oppressive, vaporous, pigeon blue-grey sky, bursting it, sending the leaden lid crashing with one shot, smashing down and pulverizing everything and burying it all, all of it, the whole miserable, dreary, loud, stinking world...

Hay preguntas que se contestan negativamente a sí mismas por el mero hecho de formularlas. Y hay ruegos cuya completa inutilidad se manifiesta cuando uno los expresa y mira a los ojos a otra persona

... aquel sentimiento que suele calificarse de tolerancia: una tibia mezcla de asco, desprecio y compasión. El hombre ya no le conmo�vía. Le resultaba indiferente.

Walking soothes. There is a healing power in walking. The regular placement of one foot in front of the other while at the same time rowing rhythmically with the arms, the rising rate of respiration, the slight stimulation of the pulse, the actions required of eye and ear for determining direction and maintaining balance, the feeling of the passing air brushing against the skin -- all these are events that mass about the body and mind in a quite irresistible fashion and allow the soul, be it ever so atrophied and bruised, to grow and expand.

Quizá faltan unas gotas de limón pensó, pero esto ya era casi frívola glotonería, porque cuando bebía después de cada bocado un pequeño sorbo de vino tinto de la botella y se lo paseaba por la lengua y entre los dientes, el regusto algo metálico del pescado se mezclaba con el fuerte y ácido perfume del vino de un modo tan convincente, que Jonathan estaba seguro de no haber comido en toda su vida mejor que ahora, en este momento.