`` That was a terrible thing to do '', I said to Oso.

`` But that was war '', I said.

Still, I was disgusted with myself for agreeing with Montero's methods.

In the brief moment I had to talk to them before I took my post on the ring of defenses, I indicated I was sickened by the methods men employed to live and trade on the river.

Next to him was a young boy I was sure had sat near me at one of the trading sessions.

Now under me I could see him for what he really was, a boy dressed up in streaks of paint.

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

under the circumstances I was only too willing to confess all.

I was nearly thirty at the time.

It was dark and, I sensed, very large ; ;

Sometimes I was aware of people moving about in the darkness.

This impressed me, until I realized how limited was his sphere of influence.

I felt certain he was really a spineless little man.

Once, pressing him, I learned that his job was only part-time, in the afternoons when nothing went on in the hall.

In the mornings, I was informed, fluorescent tubes, similar to the one above the counter, illuminated the entire hall.

I was shown, instead, a batch of white tickets of the sort handed out, he told me, every morning.

Now, here was something of obvious importance to me, yet when I reached for the tickets he snatched them away from my hand.

It was, I felt, possible that they were men who, having received no tickets for that day, had remained in the hall, to sleep perhaps, in the corners farthest removed from the counter with its overhead light.

I felt certain it was self-appointed.

I decided to see no more of the clerk until the processing of my papers was completed.

I was constantly searching for clues around the neighborhood of the hall.

I'm well aware that you've got a pedigree as long as my leg, and that I don't amount to anything.

And then I became aware that she, too, glanced at me surreptitiously.

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.

I was aware of a humid look in her eyes that told me the time was opportune.

I will assume that we are all aware of the continuing struggle, with its limited and precarious success, toward conservatism.

But all this, I am well aware, is the bel canto of love, and although I have always liked to think that it was to the bel canto and to that alone that I listened, I know well enough that it was not.

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 ; ;

I am not aware of great attention by any of these authors or by the psychotherapeutic profession to the role of literary study in the development of conscience -- most of their attention is to a pre-literate period of life, or, for the theologians of course, to the influence of religion.

but I am so aware of an uninterrupted continuity of the persona or ego that I see only as absurd the tendency of some psychologists from Heraclitus to Pirandello and Proust to regard consciousness as no more than a flux amid which nothing remains unchanged.

and then I was adding my own voice to the crescendo of sound, hurling more vile language than I ever thought I knew, sobbing and shouting, and aware that if I had passed water before, it was not enough, for my pants were soaking wet.

No one could be more devoted than he to the American Congress as an institution and more aware of its historical significance in the political history of the world, and I shall never forget his moving talks, delivered in simple yet eloquent words, upon the meaning of our jobs as Representatives in the operation of representative government and their importance in the context of today's assault upon popular government.

Becoming aware that it was nearly lunchtime, I brought myself back to the tasks at hand.

If this attitude is seriously questioned in the Soviet Union, it does not necessarily follow that the majority of the society in which I live is too aware of the necessity for clarity on this ethical as well as aesthetic point of view.

He added `` I think that sometimes in this country we are not aware as we should be of the extraordinary work that is being done in this field ''.

I have also constantly engaged in scientific work and am fully aware of the value of opinions formed in science as well as in the religions in the world.

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

As I dug in behind one of the bales we were using as protection, I grudgingly found myself agreeing with Oso's logic, especially when I imagined what would have happened to Missy if Old Knife's large party of screeching warriors had overrun our company.

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.

And I had hardly finished my business in the toilet on the aforementioned occasion when the lights in that place, like the hall lights controlled from the switch in the office, flicked off and on impatiently.

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.

At last, when I put it to him directly, the clerk was forced to admit that the delay in my case was unusual.

I don't know what you're up to, but when Brenner '' --

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

I let up on the accelerator, only to gradually reach again the 60 m.p.h. which would, I hoped, overhaul Herry and the blonde, and as there were cars whose drivers apparently had something more important to catch than had I, Mrs. Major Roebuck settled down to practicing on Corporal Johnson the kittenish wiles she would need when making her duty call on Colonel and Mrs. Somebody in Sante Fe.

`` No, I remembered reading about you in the papers and that you lived here, and when it happened all I could think of was '' -- This time she stopped the rush of words herself.

In fact, I was watching you on that little seventeen-inch screen when you rang my bell.

I was loaded with suds when I ran away, and I haven't had a chance to wash it off.

`` Only when I do it ''.

However, when there's a job to be done, I'm a monstrosity of grim determination, I like to think.