“Open the book. (The gilt rubs off the edges of the pages and pollinates the fingertips.)”

“all my life i have lived and behaved very much like the sandpiper just running down the edges of different countries and continents, looking for something.”

“Filling StationOh, but it is dirty!--this little filling station,oil-soaked, oil-permeatedto a disturbing, over-allblack translucency.Be careful with that match!Father wears a dirty,oil-soaked monkey suitthat cuts him under the arms,and several quick and saucyand greasy sons assist him(it's a family filling station),all quite thoroughly dirty.Do they live in the station?It has a cement porchbehind the pumps, and on ita set of crushed and grease-impregnated wickerwork;on the wicker sofaa dirty dog, quite comfy.Some comic books providethe only note of color--of certain color. They lieupon a big dim doilydraping a taboret(part of the set), besidea big hirsute begonia.Why the extraneous plant?Why the taboret?Why, oh why, the doily?(Embroidered in daisy stitchwith marguerites, I think,and heavy with gray crochet.)Somebody embroidered the doily.Somebody waters the plant,or oils it, maybe. Somebodyarranges the rows of cansso that they softly say:ESSO--SO--SO--SOto high-strung automobiles.Somebody loves us all.”

“I leave a lovely opalescent ribbon: I know this.”

“I have seen it over and over, the same sea, the same,slightly, indifferently swinging above the stones,icily free above the stones,above the stones and then the world.If you should dip your hand in,your wrist would ache immediately,your bones would begin to ache and your hand would burnas if the water were a transmutation of firethat feeds on stones and burns with a dark gray flame.If you tasted it, it would first taste bitter,then briny, then surely burn your tongue.It is like what we imagine knowledge to be:dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free,drawn form the cold hard mouthof the world, derived from the rocky breastsforever, flowing and drawn, and sinceour knowledge is historical, flowing, and flown.”

“Dreams were the worst. Of course I dreamed of foodand love, but they were pleasant rather than otherwise. But then I'd dream of thingslike slitting a baby's throat, mistaking itfor a baby goat. I'd havenightmares of other islandsstretching away from mine, infinitiesof islands, islands spawning islands,like frogs' eggs turning into polliwogsof islands, knowing that I had to liveon each and every one, eventually,for ages, registering their flora,their fauna, their geography.”

“Each night he must be carried through artificial tunnels and dream recurrent dreams.Just as the ties recur beneath his train, these underlie his rushing brain. He does not dare look out the window, for the third rail, the unbroken draught of poison, runs there beside him. He regards it as a disease he has inherited the susceptibility to. He has to keep his hands in his pockets, as others must wear mufflers.”