I Despised Their Antics Because I Took

Children Of Course Are Monstrously Conventional, Repelled At Once By Whatever Is Off-center, Out Of Whack, Unmanageable. And Being An Only Child I Had Been Coddled A Good Deal (also Scolded). I Was Awkward, Precocious, Timid, Full Of My Private Rituals And Aversions.

I Just Believed It Easily, The Way You Might Believe And In Fact Remember That You Once Had Another Set Of Teeth, Now Vanished But Real In Spite Of That. Until One Day, One Day When I May Even Have Been In My Teens, I Knew With A Dim Sort Of Hole In My Insides That Now I Didn't Believe It Anymore.

The Unhappiest Moment I Could Never Tell You. All Our Fights Blend Into Each Other And Are In Fact Re-enactments Of The Same Fight, In Which We Punish Each Other--i With Words, Hugh With Silence--for Being Each Other. We Never Needed Any More Than That.

This Is The Day Of Wonders. The Land Is Covered With Trees Like A Head With Hair And Behind The Ship The Sun Rises Tipping The Top Trees With Light. The Sky Is Clear And Shining As A China Plate And The Water Playfully Ruffled With Wind. Every Wisp Of Fog Is Gone And The Air Is Full Of The Resinous Smell Of The Trees. Seabirds Are Flashing Above The Sails Golden Like Creatures From Heaven, But The Sailors Raise A Few Shots To Keep Them From The Rigging.

It Must Have Meant Something, Though, That At This Turn Of My Life I Grabbed Up A Book. Because It Was In Books That I Would Find, For The Next Few Years, My Lovers. They Were Men, Not Boys. They Were Self-possessed And Sardonic, With A Ferocious Streak In Them, Reserves Of Gloom.