Four Novels

She knows it. The magnolia at her breast is completely wilted. In one hour it has lived through a whole summer.

Time moves monotonously past this forgotten flowering.

THE SALMON, CHILLED IN its original form, is served on a silver platter that the wealth of three generations has helped to buy.

People ought to live in a town where there are no trees trees scream when there’s a wind here there’s always a wind always except for two days a year in your place don’t you see I’d leave this place I wouldn’t stay all the birds or almost all are seagulls you find them dead after a storm and when the storm is over the trees stop screaming you hear them screaming on the beach like someone murdered it keeps the children from sleeping no I’ll leave.”

One night they pace back and forth in their rooms, like caged animals, not knowing what’s happening to them. They begin to suspect what it is, and are afraid.

His hands were round and milky, still scarcely formed.

Oh, one is not always alone you know. I mean so alone that one might go mad. No, there are boats and trains full of people to watch and observe and then, if one ever feels one is really going mad, there is always something to be done about it.