You see, Paul, I'm no good for you. I could never settle down with anyone. I'm too much of an egoist, I guess. You must understand.

Paul was not listening; dreaming about their first encounter, five days ago. It was the day after the Fourth of July, Bill had commented jokingly. It had been a dull party at one of Paul's friends in his pseudo-Bohemian flat on the Quai Voltaire. Then Bill arrived, introduced by a silly swishy boy called Belle. Bill, tall, sandy, handsome. Paul noticed at once the dreamy blue eyes and the strong jawbones; the tuft of blondish hair as a flame on the thick hands. American. Bill had been in Paris a few days only, on his way to Spain. They hardly spoke at first, both entranced by each other. Paul's English was just adequate enough to chat superficially, each getting located by a sort of preordained game, gleaning the essential information about the other: origins, tastes, desires. The conversation relented, halted in expectancy. Bill looked straight up at Paul, his eyes ardent, and advanced a hand. Paul felt his blood stop when Bill pressed his big hand on his own.

The five days which followed went like a mountain stream. Paul was light, immensely happy; like a bouncing chamois drunk on swift air. Guiding Bill, he discovered a Paris he had never seen before; a Paris which had been here for as long as he could remember, but that he had never actually seen or felt so acutely as he did with Bill. Bill's continuously boyish marvelling and his sensitive appraisal of the beauties of the city created an unusual current of enthusiasm in Paul. Walking hand in hand in the hushed glory of dusk in the Bois de Boulogne, silently participating in the medieval melody that was Notre Dame, searching for old maps on the Quais, sipping a late beer at the terrace of the Deux Magots in Saint Germain; and, the second night of their life, tracing their way to a minuscule cafe beside the church, and there, sheer ecstasy; the "Abbaye" was run by two Americans, black and white; in the evenings, they sang to a small friendly clientele ballads of long ago, strumming their guitars and twirling around them a web of enchantment.

Paul? I'm so sorry, boy. I have to go now and catch that train.

Can't you

Paul did not finish the sentence. There was no end to it; there never would be an end to the emptiness that surged from the darkness of this noon. Bill made a helpless gesture with his hands and started to turn away.

Bill! Don't, please, don't!

He faced Paul again, looking suddenly old and weary. He put his hand on Paul's shoulder and looked at him for awhile, shaking his head a little, as if to say: "what can I do, child? I don't have anything to give."

you. I won't

I don't have anything to give any more, Paul. I'm just a shell. I don't care. I'll be happy with very little, just being beside be a burden, I promise. Take me with you, Bill, please, please! Bill let his hand fall to his side, dejectedly. It's hopeless, he thought. I'd better get out of here fast.

Five days of glory, of the most exuberant happiness Paul had ever lived. I'm twenty-two, and I have reached the summit of human bliss. Nothing can be as fantastically ecstatic as the kind of love I had. Nothing. I'm twenty-two and there is nothing more to look forward to, now, nothing. I jumped to the crest of the mountain; now the only way is down. If only Bill would let me follow him, I'll be less miserable. He might even come to love me again. He might... Bill, please . . .

Shucks, this kid is over-sentimental. Why did I get myself involved in

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