Paris in the Present Tense

by Mark Helprin

felt her substance fleeing from her, literally rising, as if she were half in another world

like transpiration, like snow sublimating in the sun.

and that over time the strains of living – like cataracts, or storm tides that smother low-lying green fields in floods of gray – were the cause of a gradual blindness to life and color.

Justifying his technique, he would say, “A dim light at the end does little to illumine the profound darkness that follows. A lightning flash, however, has intriguing potential even in relation to eternity. After all, in theory, light can travel infinitely far.” IN THE EARLY EVENING, as soon as

Not only have I failed, but part of the reason ambition has fled is that the people I had wanted to impress are dead.

Younger children are not only quiet but less predictable and more interesting, in that they are fascinated by the world rather than straining to make the world fascinated by them.

the grayest of mornings in the city that still held his life.

He thought it just as well, for the things he valued, things great and everlasting, were mysteriously self-evident yet elusive of explanation.

“Music is evanescent, not even like a painting. It flees like smoke in the wind. It’s just gone.”

You’ve ended a life that God has given, extinguished it. You’ve put paid to a soul that by definition is far beyond anything you can comprehend, and nothing you can do or think can make up for it.

Life recedes gradually until all that was bright and startling is like a city seen from afar, the noise of wind and traffic a barely audible hiss. You glide away without pain, and you love it still. She’s in the bright world that I have to leave.”

Past and present will combine into one.

but if done right the chain of sound becomes as beautiful as the sparkling of stars.