Rebecca's Soup

“ that's the mistake I made, one of the mistakes, to have wanted a story for myself, whereas life alone is enough. ”

“ In the bathroom two water tumblers were sealed in cellophane sacks with the words: 'These glasses are sterilized for your protection.' Across the toilet seat a strip of paper bore the message: 'This seat has been sterilized with ultra-violet light for your protection.' Everyone was protecting me and it was horrible. I tore the glasses from their covers. I violated the toilet-seat with my foot. I poured half a tumbler of vodka and drank it and then another. Then I lay deep in hot water in the tub and I was utterly miserable, and nothing was good anywhere. ”

“

When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed me was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. Four hoarse blasts of a ship's whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping. The sound of a jet, an engine warming up, even the clopping of shod hooves on pavement brings on the ancient shudder, the dry mouth and vacant eye, the hot palms and the churn of stomach high up under the rib cage. In other words, I don't improve; in further words, once a bum always a bum. I fear the disease is incurable. I set this matter down not to instruct others but to inform myself.

[...]

A trip, a safari, an exploration, is an entity, different from all other journeys. It has personality, temperament, individuality, uniqueness. A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us. ”

“ All that day everyone we saw spoke of the earthquake in much the same way, as though some delightful happening had occurred for our special benefit. Instead of shying away from the subject, they reveled in it; advised us if we ever felt a severe one to run and stand in the doorframe. Even if the whole house comes down the doorways, it seems, are perfectly safe. ”

“

"I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I've lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment."

”

“

I keep six honest serving-men

(They taught me all I knew);

Their names are What and Why and When

And How and Where and Who.

”