Oscar rose and went to the glass doors. It was a very bitter thing to tell him, because he felt quite sure that she would in fact be doing that thing, in her old age. Wisdom and communion. But she would be doing it with someone else. Never with her lover. With a worshipful grad student, maybe a biographer. Never with him. He stepped outside, shot his cuffs, and leaned out on the opulent grille of the balcony.