He was thinking of the girl who would not be a maid and the other who waited for her American lover. He envied them. He would have liked to enter the… - James Salter

Death was coming for Harry Mies. He would lie emptied, his cheeks rouged, the fine, old man's ears unhearing. There was no telling the things he knew. He was alone in the far fields of his life. The rain fell on him, he did not move. p. 132

...alone in this city, alone on this sea. The days were strewn about him, he was a drunkard of days. He had achieved nothing. He had his life — it was not worth much — not like a life that, though ended, had truly been something. If I had had courage,he thought, if I had had faith. We preserve ourselves as if that were important, and always at the expense of others. We hoard ourselves. We succeed if they fail, we are wise if they are foolish, and we go onward, clutching, until there is no one — we are left with no companion save God. In whom we do not believe. Who we know does not exist.

As I think of it, there's an ache in my chest. I cannot control these dreams in which she seems to lie in my future like a whole season of extravagant meals if only I knew how to arrange it.