The Gallery (New York Review Books Classics)

by John Horne Burns

youth looking for something that doesn’t really exist. Therefore none of us is ever at peace with herself. All bitchery adds up to an attempt to get away from yourself by playing a variety of poses, each one more gruesome and leering than the last. . . . I’m sick to death of it, Esther. I can think of more reasons for not having been born than I can for living. . . . Is there perhaps some nobility stirring in my bones? —Then is there no solution, Magda? the second British sergeant asked wistfully. He cast his eyes about the bar like a novice about to take the veil. —Millions, Esther. But rarely in the thing itself. That’s what tantalizes us all. We play with the thing till it makes of us what we swear we’ll never become, cold-blooded sex machines, dead to love. There are so many ways of sublimating, Esther. . . . But are they truly satisfying either? For some hours I’ve known, though they’ll never come again, I’d cheerfully pass all eternity in hell.