— —. I told Claude . . . I told her repeatedly—“watch out for the swell guys!”

No, I blame myself for everything that’s happened. Not content with being a saint I had to prove that I was a saint. Once a man realizes that he’s a saint he should stop there. Trying to pull the saint on a little whore is like climbing into heaven by the back stairs.

When she cuddles up to me—she loves me now more than ever—it seems to me that I’m just some damned microbe that’s wormed its way into her soul. I feel that even if I am living with an angel I ought to try to make a man of myself.

We ought to get out of this filthy hole and live somewhere in the sunshine, a room with a balcony overlooking a river, birds, flowers, life streaming by, just she and me and nothing else.

The end