`` I think Montero did right '', Amy said firmly.

Such was my state of mind that I did not question the possibility of this ; ;

This light did not penetrate very far back into the hall, and my eyes were hindered rather than aided by the dim daylight entering through the fan vents when I tried to pick out whatever might be lying, or squatting, on the floor below.

I felt strongly attached to the hall, however, and hardly a day passed when I did not go to look at it from a distance.

I could not cling to my past nor did I wish to.

My future lay solely with the hall, yet what did I know about the hall at this point??

I wished to prepare myself but did not even know what sort of clothes I ought to be wearing.

I did not despair, however ; ;

For weeks I wandered about this neighborhood of warehouses and garages, truck terminals and taxi repair shops, gasoline pumps and longshoremen's lunch counters, yet never did I cease to feel myself a stranger there.

I did it for the valley.

If I hadn't got Nate stopped when I did, my duds'd all be shot plumb to hell!!

`` No, I never did see his face.

Sometimes I wondered vaguely what he did about women for my Aunt, by blood, had died some years ago, but neither of us said anything.

True, she was my Aunt, married to an Uncle related to me only by marriage, but why she had married a man twice her age, and more, perhaps, I did not know or much care.

Even as she was telling me about it I became aware of a give-away flush that suffused her neck and moved upwards to her cheeks, and subconsciously I realized that when she entered the store she did not switch on the lights.

If you tell him I made a pass at you he might think you misunderstood something I said or did, so instead of just telling him I made a pass, say I tried to date you and that you agreed so you could prove to him what a louse I really am.

And you wanted no part of me when I had so much to give.

`` I made you so you could stand up.

I remember being told it would happen so fast people would think it took place overnight.

`` Not a danged thing but rattlesnakes, so I reckon I'll get the boss rattler to help me ''.

Now turn around so I can see your face ''.

I just wanted to hear you say so ''.

`` Moriarty '', my driver suddenly exclaimed with something so definite, so final in his tone I once more repeated the absurdity, mustering all my latent powers of hypocrisy to sound convinced.

The way his red rubber lips were stretched across his pearly little teeth I thought he was only having a little joke, but, no, he wanted me to bend down from the roar of wind so he could roar something into my ear.

She was still hugging the stained coat around her, so I said, `` Relax, let me take your things.

I was so scared well, I just ran to my car and came here ''.

I didn't get a good look at him at all, his back was to me, and I was so scared It was just somebody in a man's suit.

`` And I so want the part '', she said.

I said, `` O.K., so now only Blake knows.

I worked for my Uncle ( an Uncle by marriage so you will not think this has a mild undercurrent of incest ) who ran one of those antique shops in New Orleans' Vieux Carre, the old French Quarter.

`` I guess so '', she said.

I think I have a way so we can carry on without his suspecting us ''.

I lived in a state of suspense because of it.

I had come to New Orleans two years earlier after graduating college, partly because I loved the city and partly because there was quite a noted art colony there.

My Uncle and I were not too close socially because of the difference in our ages.

I dismissed these feelings as wishful thinking but I could not get it out of my head that we had a strong physical attraction for one another and we both feared to dwell on it because of our relationship.

`` But knowing you, I know that you're glad to be alive, and grateful -- and sorry because I killed the snake, even though I had to.

You hate me, you hate my guts, because I like to hunt.

You actually hate me -- and we both know it -- because I killed that filthy snake.

and I have heard many say that they are content to earn a half or a third as much as they could up North because they so much prefer the quieter habits of their home town.

Sometimes I guessed it was because the rain squall had changed direction.

`` I suppose because it saves them some loss of body water.

The persistent horror of having a malformed child has, I believe, been reduced, not because we have gained any control over this misfortune, but precisely because we have learned that we have so little control over it.

I knew that a conversation with the author would not settle such questions, because a man is not the same as his writing: in the last analysis, the questions had to be settled by the work itself.

I suggested that one must let it in because it is the truth, but Beckett did not take to the word truth.

And if I have gone into so much detail about so small a work, that is because it is also so typical a work, representing the germinal form of a conflict which remains essential in Mann's writing: the crude sketch of Piepsam contains, in its critical, destructive and self-destructive tendencies, much that is enlarged and illuminated in the figures of, for instance, Naphta and Leverkuhn.

`` I hated the war '', he said, `` but thought I ought to go because I was, perhaps, one of those who hadn't done enough to prevent it ''.

At the same time, I am aware that my recoil could be interpreted by readers of the tea leaves at the bottom of my psyche as an incestuous sign, since theirs is a science of paradox: if one hates, they say it is because one loves ; ;