Selections from "Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi"

When he came to a half-decent canal, he sat beside it and didn't weep.


{ to a goat who has asked the narrator the difference between human and goat consciousness:}

"Well, you see, that is probably the difference. The ability to articulate things. Language. Self-examination. . . . " I didn't know what else to say. It seemed I was lacking in exactly the qualities I claimed distinguished me from my interlocutor. The more I tried to articulate the difference between myself and the goat, the more we had in common.

"I am in mourning for myself," I said, reprising the old Chekhov joke. "My old self refuses to die. The new is struggling to be reborn. In this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear."