One too many sojourns—this one launched less in a spirit of exploration than simply to make a point, to prove that my life had not changed, that I was still young, still curious, still free—was only proving beyond doubt that my life had indeed changed, that at forty-one I was not remotely young, that I had truly sated a certain glib curiosity about other countries, and that there was a variety of liberty of which I could no longer avail myself without sinking the one tiny island of permanence, of durable meaning and lasting desire, that I had managed to annex in this vast, arbitrary sea of
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