A man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river
But then he’s still left with the river
A man takes his sadness and throws it away
but then he’s still left with his hands.

‘Bless me’ he said.
I blessed him, not really knowing what I was doing. I asked him to do the same and he did saying, ‘blessed be this woman who has loved much’ .
They were beautiful words, and we embraced again and stayed there, unable to understand how 11 minutes could carry a man and a woman so far.

He pulled me in tight and kissed me—really kissed me—one last time.

But the silence of the evening, as I wandered home, had nothing to do with that storm, that far-off boy. I simply wondered about the dead because their days had ended and I did not know how I would get through mine.

He began to cry. I held him. And, while I felt his anguish entering into me, like acid in his sweat, and felt that my heart would burst for him, I also wondered, with an unwilling, unbelieving contempt, why I had ever thought him strong.

“Maybe everything bad that happens to you makes you weaker,” said Giovanni, as though he had not heard me, “and so you can stand less and less.” Then, looking up at me, “No. The worst thing happened to me long ago and my life has been awful since that day. You are not going to leave me, are you?”

“You aren’t alone now,” I said. And then, quickly, for I could not, at that moment, have endured his touch: “Shall we go for a walk? Come—out of this room for a minute.

And I also felt, standing so close to him, feeling such a passion to keep him from terror, that a decision—once again!—had been taken from my hands. For neither my father nor Hella was real at that moment. And yet even this was not as real as my despairing sense that nothing was real for me, nothing would ever be real for me again—unless, indeed, this sensation of falling was reality.

No. It would help if I were able to feel guilty. But the end of innocence is also the end of guilt.
No matter how it seems now, I must confess: I loved him. I do not think that I will ever love anyone like that again. And this might be a great relief if I did not also know that, when the knife has fallen, Giovanni, if he feels anything will feel relief.

It was hard work, it was insane work, but I did not have the energy or the heart to stop him. In a way he was doing it for me, to prove his love for me. He wanted me to stay in the room with him. Perhaps he was trying, with his own strength, to push back the encroaching walls, without, however, having the walls fall down.

The burden of his salvation seemed to be on me and I could not endure it.

“One of these days,” he said. “Everything bad will happen—one of these days.” “Why is it bad?”
He smiled, “Why, you will go home and then you will find that home is not home anymore. Then you will really be in trouble. As long as you stay here, you can always think: One day I will go home.” He played with my thumb and grinned. “N’est-ce pas?”
“Beautiful logic,” I said. “You mean I have a home to go to as long as I don’t go there?”
He laughed. “Well, isn’t it true? You don’t have a home until you leave it and then, when you have left it, you never can go back.”
“I seem,” I said, “to have heard this song before.”
“Ah, yes,” said Giovanni, “and you will certainly hear it again. It is one of those songs that somebody somewhere will always be singing.”

She laughed. “But we—we have our love to keep us warm.”
“We’re not the first people who thought that as they lay in bed.” Nevertheless, we lay silent and still in each other’s arms for awhile

“What is the matter?”
“Why have you gone away from me?”
I did not know what to say. Giovanni turned to the wall again. I had hoped, I had supposed that I would feel nothing: but I felt a tightening in a far corner of my heart, as though a finger had touched me there.
“I have never reached you,” said Giovanni. “You have never really been here. I do not think you have ever lied to me, but I know that you have never told me the truth—why? Sometimes you were here all day long and you read or you opened the window or you cooked something—and I watched you—and you never said anything—and you looked at me with such eyes, as though you did not see me. All day, while I worked, to make this room for you.”
I said nothing. I looked beyond Giovanni’s head at the square windows which held back the feeble moonlight.
“What are you doing all the time? And why do you say nothing? You are evil, you know, and sometimes when you smiled at me, I hated you. I wanted to strike you. I wanted to make you bleed. You smiled at me the way you smiled at everyone, you told me what you told everyone—and you tell nothing but lies. What are you always hiding?

And do you think I did not know when you made love to me, you were making love to no one? No one! Or everyone—but not me, certainly. I am nothing to you, nothing, and you bring me fever but no delight.”
I moved, looking for a cigarette. They were in my hand. I lit one. In a moment, I thought, I will say something. I will say something and then I will walk out of this room forever.
“You know I cannot be alone. I have told you. What is the matter? Can we never have a life together?”
He began to cry again. I watched the hot tears roll from the corners of his eyes onto the dirty pillow.
“If you cannot love me, I will die. Before you came I wanted to die, I have told you many times. It is cruel to have made me want to live only to make my death more bloody.”
I wanted to say so many things. Yet, when I opened my mouth, I made no sound. And yet—I do not know what I felt for Giovanni. I felt nothing for Giovanni. I felt terror and pity and a rising lust.

I’ll listen to everything and forget it all

You love her because she is a door marked “Exit.”

I love it when the sky makes me feel insignificant.
I like tonight.