“Dancing Towards BethlehemIf there is only enough time in the finalminutes of the 20th century for one last danceI would like to be dancing it slowly with you,say, in the ballroom of a seaside hotel.My palm would press into the small of your backas the past hundred years collapsed into a pileof mirrors or buttons or frivolous shoes,just as the floor of the 19th century gave wayand disappeared in a red cloud of brick dust.There will be no time to order another drinkor worry about what was never said,not with the orchestra sliding into the seaand all our attention devoted to hummingwhatever it was they were playing. ”

“Mankind had built a world that would take hundred years to die. A century for the last lights to go out.”

“---In his major phase, he[Conrad] was "ahead of his times" in ideas and techniques;and this was because he was more intelligently and perceptively of his times than most writers then were. In his vigilant response to 19th century preoccupations, he anticipated--often critically--many 20th century preoccupations. He was a versatile intermediary between the Romantic and Victorian traditions and the innovations of Modernism.”

“How’s your dance card look?” “Double-check your century Jules. No dance cards.” Jules shrugged & gave me his most flirtatious smile.”

“After spending all that time in bed, I realized I was treating the act of eating as though it's the art of Zen, taking in just enough, a little at a time, slowly. Exactly the way I never did with food. Like dancing without passion, eating like that will never awaken your palate.”

“Would you like to?” he says. His voice is hardly audible above the wind—so low it’s barely a whisper.“Would I like to what?” My heart is roaring, rushing in my ears, and thoughthere are still several inches between his hand and mine, there’s a zipping,humming energy that connects us, and from the heat flooding my body youwould think we were pressed together, palm to palm, face to face.“Dance,” he says, at the same time closing those last few inches and findingmy hand and pulling me closer, and at that second the song hits a high note and Iconfuse the two impressions, of his hand and the soaring, the lifting of the music.We dance.”