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While daylight came we sat and looked at the black pile of ashes. We hadn’t accepted the fire; we’d been able to fight that as long as it burned. But now, in the daylight, in our tiredness, as if we’d fought all night in a dream, we accepted the ashes.
And both of us knew that if the time ever came it would be a hard thing to do, and a risky one. Once we’d passed him we could never be behind again. We’d have to stay in front, and it was a lonely and a troublesome place.
We were the way we were; nothing could make us any different, and we suffered because of it. Things happened to us the way they did because we were ourselves. And if we’d been other people it wouldn’t have mattered. If we’d been Mushmouth or Jig Pendleton or that dog with the roman candle tied to his tail, it would have been the same; we’d have had to suffer whatever it was that they suffered because they were themselves. And there was nothing anybody could do but let it happen.