I think sanity, however, is the most profound moral option of our time.

We spoke of a friend of ours who had died the night before, at forty-three. " But my God! I'm forty-one," a bearded banker said. "Don't worry," his wife, who is German, answered. "There is no order. It is not a line."

My own mind is a tenement. Some elevators work. There are orange peels and muggings in the halls. Squatters and doble locks on some floors, a few flowered window boxes, half-dressed bachelors cooling on the outside fire steps; plaster falls. Sometimes it seems that this may be a nervous breakdown - sleeping all day, tears, insomnia at midnight, and again at four a.m. Then it occurs to me that a lot of people have it. Or, of course, worse.

Being neurotic seemed to be a kind of wild card, an all-purpose explanation.