She was wearing one of my pajama suits, and had the sleeves rolled up. When she laughed I wanted her again
for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe. To feel it so like myself, indeed, so brotherly, made me realize that I’d been happy, and that I was happy still.
Getting up was an effort, as I’d been really exhausted by the previous day’s experiences. While shaving, I wondered how to spend the morning, and decided that a swim would do me good. So I caught the streetcar that goes down to the harbor.
And I can remember the look of the church, the villagers in the street, the red geraniums on the graves, Pérez’s fainting fit-he crumpled up like a rag doll-the tawny-red earth pattering on Mother’s coffin, the bits of white roots mixed up with it; then more people, voices, the wait outside a café for the bus, the rumble of the engine, and my little thrill of pleasure when we entered the first brightly lit streets of Algiers, and I pictured myself going straight to bed and sleeping twelve hours at a stretch.
didn’t know exactly how old she was.
I caught myself thinking what an agreeable walk I could have had, if it hadn’t been for Mother.
dead body in their midst meant nothing at all to them.
But I wasn’t sure if I should smoke, under the circumstances-in Mother’s presence
found it rather interesting, what he’d been telling me; I hadn’t thought of that before.
never given a thought to religion in her life