Exit Ghost by Philip Roth

Author:Philip Roth [Roth, Philip]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

HE

What might that larger reason be?

SHE

Escaping pain.

HE

What pain?

SHE

The pain of being present.

HE

Aren't you describing yourself?

SHE

Perhaps. The pain of being present in the present moment. Yes, that could be said to describe very neatly the extreme thing I'm doing. But for you it wasn't merely the present moment. It was being present at all. It was being present in the presence of anything.

HE

Did you ever read a short novel called The Shadow-Line?

SHE

By Conrad? No. I remember a boyfriend telling me about it once, but I never read it.

HE

The opening line goes, "Only the young have such moments." These are moments Conrad describes as "rash." In the first few pages he lays everything out. "Rash moments"—the two words make up the entire sentence. He goes on, "I mean moments when the still young are inclined to commit rash actions, such as getting married suddenly or else throwing up a job for no reason." It goes like that. But these rash moments don't just happen in youth. Coming here last night was a rash moment. Daring to return is another. With age there are rash moments too. My first was leaving, my second is returning.

SHE

Billy thinks that he's indulging a rash moment on my part because if he doesn't, I'll get swamped with depression and fear. But he thinks that it's a rash moment. I never thought of myself as a desperate person. I hate to think that I'd be doing something desperate.

HE

I think you'll like it there. I'll miss you.

SHE

Well, it's your house. You can come up. You can have forgotten something and come up. We can have lunch.

HE

You can have forgotten something and come down.

SHE

Sure.

HE

Okay. You're less curt with me than you were last night. The fact that I haven't followed Bush's lies shouldn't make me an antagonist.

SHE

Was I nasty?

HE

I didn't feel that you cared for me much. Unless I intimidated you.

SHE

Of course you did. I read all those books in college and all the ones since. You might not be aware of it, locked up alone in the Berkshires, but there are many like me, people my age, and older (laughing) and younger, for whom you fill an important need. We admire you.

HE

Well, I haven't seen myself in the public mirror for many years. I don't know that.

SHE

I just told you.

HE

I still don't know it. But it's wonderful to learn of your admiration, because I've quickly come to admire you.

SHE

(Astonished) You've come to admire me? "Why?

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