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ing amusing words my novels  not of cosmic importance, hardly

[Then self -reassuringly]

but there is a public to cherish them, evidently and I can write! more than one can say of these modern sex-yahoos! I must start work tomorrow I’d like to use the Professor in a novel sometime  and his wife  seems impossible she’s been dead six years  so aggressively his wife! poor Professor! now it’s Nina who bosses him but that’s different  she has bossed me, too, ever since she was a baby  she’s a woman now  known love and death  Gordon brought down in flames  two days before the armistice  what fiendish irony! his wonderful athlete’s body her lover  charred bones in a cage of twisted steel  no wonder she broke down  Mother said she’s become quite queer lately  Mother seemed jealous of my concern  why have I never fallen in love with Nina? could I? that way  used to dance her on my knee  sit her on my lap  even now she’d never think anything about it  but sometimes the scent of her hair and skin  like a dreamy drug  dreamy! there’s the rub! all dreams with me! my sex life among the phantoms!

[He grins torturedly]

Why? oh, this digging in gets nowhere to the devil with sex! our impotent pose of today to beat the loud drum on fornication! boasters eunuchs parading with the phallus! giving themselves away whom do they fool? not even themselves !

[His face suddenly full of an intense pain and disgust]

Ugh! always that memory! why can’t I ever forget? as sickeningly clear as if it were yes-