A case of conscience

he had never taken serious offense stiffened a case of conscience
you mean money haven't I told you that the work wasn't good enough
at her friendship with one or the other of frightened by her gaiety and made increasingly nervous when she was silent
twenty she's had wanted to see more of the world by the time she reached forty
he took great pleasure in hearing her say amazement we lives all day in darkened rooms
care he worked with love not vanity and with the belief too
in front of all of them with her false modesty that you began packing your possessions in boxes all over the floor of concrete and glass as I landed on the poor city

the fact that they saw each other regularly every evening his job at frightened out of her wits
the phrase make love but which of us are creatures house and her love for him that it implied gullible and ready to swallow tales of rape though i doubt whether you'll ever write
it was true what he always said about her, that she took a step backwards
an awful thing where experience and not passion for the work was the main factor
was nothing special or remarkable about bad influence her steely glare
whether I open on security but a married woman her nothing excessively flattering escaped her as if he were saying beneath an eagle love does it you say you've been loved
lips in sensing the power she wielded over him beneath his scrutiny she felt guilty
someone so superior to himself perhaps she did not want to go lowering her head like me if she ever learns to feel pleasure again
he proclaimed faithful above all others he stroked the back of her neck do you remember when we slept in a tent to be a mistress of a famous man increases her self-respect

he had observed so many other men devoid of sympathy could you planning for popular reading
she had appeared to be a desirable and she said nothing and gripped the handle wasn't there
fascinating woman the attractive her body held clinging to it with all her strength senior employee was there somebody else
for him had aroused in him a painful he choked back a yawn it's terribly late how about turning in content as long as we were together but when I left you I began to suffer

longing to secure the absolute mastery she nodded somewhere a bird called odd to admit all of this of even the tiniest particles of her heart and grimaced to sleep on the floor to stretch out his legs and pretended to be he had begun to attach a supreme value revolver purchased for security in these days of the war on terror I have ben waiting for you

to that moment he had spent in the evenings touched her chin give me a kiss darling a littlre bit afraid it returns such a straight at her apartment when he held her close felt his warm open mouth pressing against her I was happy when we started this affair
and shared with her all those things he longed touched her lips with his tongue jotted down some questions to tell her and asked her what she thought she shuddered as she felt his arm creeping do you consider the love of God about silly things like he took care to thank of my darling she flung herself back i'm dropping in the efficacy of prayer with sleep

her effusively seeking to indicate he folded his arms over his head good night sweetheart greatest of modern architects her by her sense of gratitude the corresponding she remained rigid with a sense of oppression bared his conscience to the Catholic intensity of the pleasure it was within deep breath fidgeting familiar grunts he was sleeping the grayest spark in the war was sleeping

her power to bestow on him the supreme no better than an animal a girl dies for love i don't like
power being to guarantee him immensity the whole world of men on your knees surrounded by
for as long as his love should last and he engulfed in two chalky moonlit circles pilgrims at your shrine that's how history works remain vulnerable from the assaults of jealousy running along a pinkish road the morgue was not big enough when he came away from his meal that evening joy was turning into a feeling of disgust take her memories on trust as she had always been
it was pouring rain outside and he had nothing left felt like having a smoke under his neck he couldn't face

a friend offered to take him home in his car desire grew and grew passing on contagious
but he by the fact that she had invited him to come lungs expanding in uncontrolled breathing as a woman smiles at a man she loves

he promised him that she had time for him I am indispensable in his mouth the taste of tobacco
addressed him from the bed I am sorry to see her he could have gone home with leaned over his regular breathing the way people come and go a quiet mind and an untroubled heart but she pushed back the latch and slipped out of the room and a few days after he went in unannounced
rather than set off thus in the rain but perhaps if she moon seen through the leaves some new arterial road saw he was not fit to stick to his resolution to freshness of the night air two policeman climbed out of the car

spend the late evening always without exception lit a cigarette when the war was asleep the resurrection of the dead in her company she might not bother to keep suddenly realizing that she disliked cigarette exporting bodies with the help of witchcraft smoking it free for him one the one occasion when he took two more drags and threw it away at the same speed in the same direction might have benefited from her one leaves and country rustles softly stayed aloof no echo

night when he desired it she was frightened he was sleeping and she has discovered hallways that stretched between his room it was after sundown when he reached her door the mysterious world of her childhood after he had been cured of his addiction his wife moved and he made an apology for not having been distance of the earth from the moon a baby with the woman able to arrive earlier she complained that employment she felt lost in the world that the Church considered sin it was very late and that a storm had made her in a world that ceased to be touched and felt not easy to understand feel unwell and her head ached and warned created to be seen and touched negative reaction

him that he could not stay more than half an hour I despise him she ran back to than you
a little while later she told him that she wanted to lie down science and industry and moral code it requires a man to be strong to survive not tonight i have been looking forward she touched the door grabbed the handle making the rounds to seeing you tonight glimpsed a large open mouth quite unknown

not tonight she seemed peevish can't you tell i'm not feeling well don't mistake me for a death wish
it might be good for you to get some fresh air but i won't bother you postive test they all expected
she asked him to put out the light on his way pitch darkness opened a trap door unnecessary suffereing in both cases
out he drew the curtains round her bed and left dazzled silvery radiance the more uncomfortable we are

when he was back in his own house the idea jumped into a bed of memories and sounds teach me how to suffer struck him that perhaps she was expecting someone else who goes there it's me sat at his table that evening that she had merely pretended to be top corner of a church tower to remember who it was that had said much the same of him tired she had asked him to put out the light but that muffled voice and shuffling feet made them ready go was only to lead him to believe that she was going to assemble in the square a handful of caterpillars

sleep that the moment that he had left her home took two steps backward and leaned against a wall the chihuahuas lay quiet had put it on again and had opened the door to embarrassed excessive concern waiting for the man who was to spend the night with her disconcerted hesitated scowling perhaps the only ones who had completely satisfied he looked at his watch it was about an hour and a bark of laughter pain falling over in pieces around him

half since he had left her he went out took a cab studies him attentively relapsed into drug-additiction until the tests come back negative and stopped it close to her house in a little street hefty choking voice find your vocation running at an angle to that other street that lay darting it like hell to lay down for the fireworks dreamed of the day

at the back of her house which he sometimes wallowing in filth and shame hundreds of millions of years traveled he left the cab the street was deserted and dark we can never be one with them riding the great twenty-first century recvolutionary he walked a few years and came out almost opposite our pals are in the cellar whether of not Christ ever existed her house amid the glimmering blackness of the row of black houses he could see them the terrible things we have seen men do since 9/11

of windows in which the lights had long since been put out he leaned over the glowing ribbon of road small hope that the man they call Christ he was one and only one from which the light my place is down there he knew in his heart but if we are incapable of love between the slats and the shutters closed like a press he would never be able to go down there who cares what superstitions I live by over its mysterious golden juice the light filled the she was sitting astride the bed like Pascal gambled on his room within a light which he saw on so many other evenings in order to keep up his spirits have you ever loved a woman as soon as he saw it from afar he turned into the getting on his nerves she was my wife

street he rejoiced in his heart a message that she was there what sounded like an enormous explosion was just the clock striking the hour he worked more rapidly expecting you now it tortured him saying high up in the sky above the village fire-hazard room she is there with the man she was expecting I would not go down for anything in the world of course it's for the doctor to decide she said

he must know who it was he tiptoed along the wall small groups of people melding together much quicker in a class where they could joke until he reached the bars but between the expression on his face darkened you are wasted on the work we have here slanting shades of the window he could see nothing scuttling about aimlessly like ants that's the difference between us
could only hear in the silence of the night muted conversation delighted and conscious of nothing I am content

he suffered as he watched that light in whose burning liquid on his thumb was the graveyard properly golden atmosphere behind the sash stirred the unseen trouble to prevent blood from flowing the seperation was to leave space and detested pair as he listened to the murmur sharp instrument once baptized you are always a Christian

which revealed the presence of a man smiled freely to prevent blood from flowing too soon unattractive in a man who had crept in after his own departure the deception gathered up a blanket we see of her and the pleasure she was enjoying now going to die at lunch carrying his highly comic

from this stranger and yet was not sorry he had what a shame end of the platform last year the war spread across the world returned to her street the torment which had forced him hands on thighs like a goal keeper crumbled his bread from his room had focused him to become more all of his memories filled with self pity me during my absence you are the only one it's you or no-one acute and less vague now that her other life which from made up his mind of the branches perhaps even a short-term relationship could cure instant knowledge a sexual dynamo

the first moment he had had a sudden suspicion possibility of dying impossibility of living a bare life the more he needed change was definitely there in the full glow of the lamp light extinguisher upon the earth said with a certain sadness almost within his grasp an unwitting prisoner into shut it down forever earliest moments the room within which he would force himself to seize raised his face and watched him unobtrusively her unawares or rather he would knock upon without so much as what books might have been written

her door as he imagined himself doing when he arrived late she awoke with a sense of loathing the buildings whatever or by some signal so that at least my body disgusts me even if it doesn't disgust you it's a horror to the point of unreliability she would know that he knew took her by the shoulders

and that he had seen the light and had heard their was heavy upon her not too many saints in common use conscious and burning with fever voices or that he himself a moment ago had pictured I'm too old much too old for him she as though he wondered how it had come there thought

her laughing with this illusion now it was he gently pushed him from her do you really enjoy this stuff who saw them confident in their error tricked by no other get off me what it's my heart it's beating too hard and you're suffocating me

than by himself who they believed to be with a smile he stretched out beside her far away but who was here in person and put his face in the pillow eyes gazing into mine there with a plan there with the knowledge that pucker in the corner of his mouth he was going in another minute to knock on the shutter she propped herself on her elbow and looked at him

and perhaps the most pleasurable so used to the sight was she he become such a habit sensation he felt at this moment was that she could no longer observe him something to sooth the feverish dryness in her throat

of a doubt I felt nothing at all no more than I could see her hand in the dark and of a pain was an intellectual pleasure which had secreted so many sly thoughts if since he had fallen in love things had recovered a little then at last the secret emerged of the delightful interest they had for him long ago angry at him for failing to stir her deeply but only insofar as they were illuminated bitter lines about her mouth

for him by the memory of her now it's I who have a secret just try to get it out of me do you really enjoy this stuff now it was another of the faculties of his studious ways he drew back the sheet and studied her body attentively

youth that his jealousy revived his passion for truth brushed her nipples slightly and felt embarrassed there have been so many others but for a truth which was also interposed between blood rushed to her cheeks her advancing age was like a cancer proliferating in her breast from his lips I learned the meaning himself and his lover and God and when he shared with what could you see in an old bag like me didn't they take me for your mother

her his secret knowledge of the lord she acknowledge that such things happen to her all the time
and it felt like a dismissal I want my life to be about Joy she told him she criticized mercilessly people a more favorable view of the mission what kind of person would pick Jesus Christ as the person from history they would most like to have dinner with

her life her actions her environment her plans he laugher and for a moment he looked young to her past at ever other period in his life he would have been consumed thought drifted like a cloud across his face he kept humbly hidden the little everyday activities of another person eyes darkened looked at him without friendliness had always seemed meaningless to him if gossip you smell so sweet

about such things was repeated to him he would he smiles and laid his head on her breast
dismiss it as insignificant while he listened it was only the lowest she shrugged her shoulders are you going to talk or aren't you

most commonplace part of his mind that was engaged he shook his head as though terrorized
these were the moments he felt he was at him most inglorious silent she lay there on her back
but in this strange phase of love the personality of I see you have something to say but you want me to pull it out of you she said

another person becomes so enlarged so deepened the curiosity it doesn't matter to me he speaks to me he screws me but I shall die alone it is love a completely selfless love which he not felt stirring inside him with regard to she heard him heave a sigh and turned her head spoken to the woman he loved in this world the smallest details of a woman's daily life was the am thirst he had a sad set expression on his face the world made a path to his door for knowledge with which he had once studied history now i suppose i've got to start worrying about you what lies a man does tell and all manner of action from which previously he would draw conclusions from the way he looked are just professional exaggerations have recoiled from in shame such as spying tonight give me my dressing gown and a cigarette outside a window tomorrow perhaps for all he know she put it on he put on his trousers and sat down at a table

putting aside provocative questions to casual you've found some sweet pure virgin you want to marry there was no discussion all the talking ceased witnesses bribing servants listening at doors seemed to him he looked so dumbfounded she blushed YOUR LIFE

now precisely to be at a level with the deciphering all right all right I'm glad I married you
of manuscripts the weighting of evidence the intentions of she took a cigarette and lit it -why
old monuments so many different methods of -you'll see you'll see

scientific investigation with a genuine intellectual value are you trying to tell me that I will have to dress up and call you the headmaster fame is alwyas a problem and legitimately employable in the search for truth they call me the principle there yes that is what you will do and at the end of the school year I will make a speech at commencement on the point of knocking on the door he felt a pang of Hmmm ! she said

shame at the thought of seeing her at the thought that Ivan will come to live with us
she would see him as he had suspected her that he can't stand me she said he had returned to post himself outside her window perhaps not but that's how it is going to be she had often told him what a horror she felt all arrange jump at the chance of jealous men of lovers who spied what he was about to do jump at the chance of living with you was singularly inept and she would detest him caught a gleam in his eye forever after whereas now for the moment for so long the gleam vanished he looked at his knees as he refrained from knocking even in the you're rather too certain of your power to charm act of infidelity perhaps she loved him still I'd like anything so long as I could live with you how often the prospect of future happiness is now I spend all my time wondering what I'm fit for sacrificed to one's impatient insistence upon an immediate you wanted to write gratification but his desire to know the truth I never thought seriously of writing was stronger and seemed to him to be nobler he knew I've nothing to say
that the reality of certain circumstances which he you see I never thought I would come out of this business alive

would have given his life to be able to reconstruct accurately she looked at him attentively are you sorry the war's not expending little happiness and in full was to be read behind the window it isn't over additional troops are being called up every week

streaked with bars of light as within the illuminated golden anyway it's over for you yes it's over for me the same company as her husband boards of one of those precious manuscripts by words came tumbling out of his mouth whose artistic wreath the scholar who consults them cannot suggest you go with them remain unmoved he felt a tender presence with a melting look
in learning the truth which he passionately sought you'd do all sorts of ridiculous things if I didn't keep my eye on you unique ephemeral precious manuscript when are we going to get married
translucent page warm beautiful moreover the advantage bent down and picked them up with a stupid expression was a badge of honor to him which he felt so desperately wanted to feel carefully arranged on top of the bedside table that he had over them lay perhaps not so much in knowing when are your pals starting tomorrow evening as soon as that yes and they've got to be quick about it as in being able to show them walked swaying to the end of the room
that he knew he raised himself the empty streets the pink sky on tiptoe he knocked they had not heard one more cable to be cut they read aloud to each other and the conversation ceased as soon as that was broken she would turn around

a man's voice he strained his ears to distinguish tomorrow evening is as good as any other time
whose among such friends as she had he did not know the first golden gleams of sunrise shone through the window marks as well keep them in a box instead who is might be a voice asked who's there she walked away until she felt totally free he could not be certain of the voice he knocked go if you want to i'm not holding you back again the window first and then the shutters were thrown open jumped to his feet he want to her and took her by the arm Janice

it was too late now to draw back and since she you're hurting me she protested wiped his face with a handkerchief was about to know all in order not too seem too miserable he gave her a suspicious look will it make you that unhappy when he turned back he saw her watching him
too jealous and inquisitive he called out in yes it's made me unhappy but I'd rather not have it any other way her father teaching her the words for bread and coffee a cheerful casual tone of voice please don't bother no more than I could have done in words he understood i just happened to be passing and saw the his shoulders drooped he hung his arms marks and stamps her mother urged her to remarry light i just wanted to know if you were feeling better for the first time in his life he felt his body was an embarrassment

she was grateful to him for not showing his joy openly facing him at the window one of them with a lamp in his hand Janice he said and stretching out his hand

and beyond them he could see into the room she wanted to tear that hand away one he had never seen before her window was the only one but kept a tight hold on herself in a row of windows still lit up in a row of she was still gazing at him but could felt as if his hand were no longer hers she had refused to believe that this was the end of the story she was reading
windows all alike he had been misled by the light and had they faced each other as dead persons
knocked on the window beyond hers which he was New Jersey and she was New York and he was hers no longer her benefactor but she would have to wait another belonged to the adjoining apartment I'll be true to you I won't sleep with any other women he made what apology he could and hurried you poor boy she said the dogs began barking home glad that the satisfaction of his curiosity had left his morning she wished the next evening had come already three times a year and gave to her chief executive the vice-president love intact and having feigned so long a sort of indifference towards her suddenly striking his forehead sun through the window dazzled her he had given her proof that he loved her too shit hell what's the matter now I can't go I can't go

Why not I told you I wanted to marry you Jason she said in a fury if you won't stay for my sake

much which between a pair of lovers forever dispenses but her anger belonged to a time already dead had spent the night watching the activity on the streeet the recipient from the obligation to love enough what's that got to do with it either get dressed or go back to bed you'll catch a cold she wanted to go in and shee her husband he never spoke of this misadventure and he seemed bewildered how odd she thought he's just made a decision that will affect his whole life had repeated the insulting phrase ceased even to think about it himself she sat down on the bed his was walking vigourously down the stairs but his face was gloomy you have to tell me if that is your message but now and then his thoughts in their wandering she rose to her feet with difficulty grabbed his hair and forced his head up in the house she would be safe violence in their class course would come upon him memory where it lay look at me what's wrong unobserved would startle it into life thrust it he turned his face away where he had gone no more than a glance forward into consciousness and leave him with a sharp it's only that i think you're rather strange get you something to drink deep-rooted pain as though it were a bodily what do you mean strange i feel rather shocked so you feel shocked do you she repeated put him on my track
wound his mind was powerless to alleviate it you actually feel shocked and she burst out laughing the sent you after me but at least in the case of bodily pain it was grunted sat up and rubbed his head persecution independent of the mind that can dwell upon it and note warm and cheerful the sun still low upon it undiminished it had momentarily ceased distant rhythmic rumbling of the city looking across the river

but in the case of the mind merely recalling it as pain damned fool with glasses bent at the waist
created it afresh to determine not to think of high buildings could make out motorcars coming in a quick spurt it was to think of it still to suffer from it still and when odd religious fright if she loves you in conversation with his friends he forgot about horror inspired by supernatural not sure when there aren't men in the house it suddenly a word casually uttered would make him thought of foreign eyes of supermen change countenance like a wounded man when overwhelmed by a frightening realization he's angry aghast at a clumsy hand had touched upon his aching wound that they will see my dead body I thought women usually liked

when he left her he was happy he felt calm and sat down on the mattress wants to know after a time recalled her face her smile when he brought her yawning like a doe's face young and surely she was pretty enough some present when he voice chirped in approval over two dried prunes missed twice her cutting mockery when recalling a person from her life resemble the same dirty faces of the people on the street yes you advise me he recalled the gravity of her words and squatting on her heels they would take him in now if they could find him the sharpness angles of her mouth which she seemed to he tried to fight against his fear was going to by some surprise gifts let droop and fall and then draw tightly as he made the same sweet nauseous yawning face he's been with him longer

she had done of the first evening they were together to find some warmth in his anger drawn my sting the languishing looks she gave him as she looked at him with an obedient and attentive face you have nothing to fear lay in his arms nestling her head against his shoulder was only a dream good of you to come visit as though shrinking from the cold but then clear field of fire laudatory extra copies at once his jealousy as though it were the shadow of took the blanket and dropped it to his knees his love presented him with the complacent flattened against a pompous shadow with the converse of that new smile with which she now talked back to him there from the nineteenth floor of their building she was not even a Catholic greeted him that very evening and which he tried to make out their faces of the pedestrians now perversely mocked him and now shone for another dashing along the road soul in eternity not interested with that droop of the head now sinking now two slim figures four long parallel legs moving equal lengths

onto other lips of all the marks of affection now an accompaniment of mechanical spasms
given to another and all voluptuous memories with the stiff nobility of the figures
which he had borne away from his time with her the exhaust of the buses roaring below it's a penalty of genius to belong to the world were but so many sketches rough plans fascinating but otherwise nothing stirred in him cracked character like those a decorator submits enabling to him he forms at top speed they whizzed along where the truth might road

an idea of various attitudes aflame or faint to him they seemed invulnerable
with passion which she might adopt for others there was a screaming of brakes car doors slammed nothing new I could only repeat myself with the result that he came to regret every a wave of anxiety washed over him like oncoming sleep never feeling remorse
pleasure that he tasted in her company every new he looks into the street
caress which he had been so imprudent as to hatred was about to spout to the skies but his heart was not in it point out to her the delights every fresh charm they've done nothing to us they're not thinking of us that he found in her he knew that they he shut his eyes they wish us no harm a marriage of passion would go on to enrich the collection they'll see my dead body they'll kick it into the street to set an example of instruments in her secret torture chamber he was not afraid of death but he was afraid to play the game of hatred

at last ! the gun fired and a sharp cracking sound emitted
into the street he opened his eyes and could not believe what he saw: the street was silent and deserted he tried to believe it was a better method than a trial
that he had been dreaming no one had fired slammed the door shut
no one