Only the mind and the imagination could keep someone alive, as he had kept Amelita Galli-Curci s voice alive in the Catskills. There was a time you came to the Catskills because it was paradise. Do not be so afraid, he advised. That is the only thing that can hurt you. He told me that the first time he chipped at a piece of sandstone with his hammer and chisel, he felt empowered, like a god making life.
Marriage becomes predictable, a kind of routine that floats like a stationary buoy on moving waters.
Its early, intensely wonderful drama becomes repetitive theater, the same lines rotely spoken, or mumbled, the same gestures instinctively offered from the drill of daily rehearsal. The anticipation of surprise following surprise eventually fades, then vanishes. It is not needed. Childlike, he had filled himself with all that he had seen and heard and experienced, and he had tried to leave payments of himself for all those things that had mattered to him. She inhaled slowly, as though inhaling the memory and the warmth of the fire, and then she said quietly, I believe that was the night, and that was the place there, in front of the fire when I first knew that I really loved you.