Mason & Dixon

by Thomas Pynchon

“This Life,” runs the moral he is able by now to draw for Dixon, “is like the eleven days,— a finite Period at whose end, she and I, having separated for a while, will be together again. Meanwhile must I travel alone, in a world as unreal as those empty September dates were to me then. . . .” “ ‘Bite,’ Mason?” “Nothing, nothing. Likely a Dog.” “How likely?”