If you live among dogs they'll think you've the motives of a dog. What other motives can they give you ? - Ford Madox Ford

If you live among dogs they’ll think you’ve the motives of a dog.

"هؤلاء نساء فلاندرز
ينتظرن الضّائعين،
ينتظرنَ الضّائعين الذين أبداً لنْ يُغادروا الميناء،
ينتظرن الضّائعين الّذين أبداً لن يجيء بهم القطار
إلى أحضان هؤلاء النّسوة، ذوات الوجوه الميتة،
ينتظرن الضّائعين الّذين يرقدون موتى في الخندق والحاجز والطّين في ظلام الليل.
هذه محطّة تشارنغ كروس. السّاعة جاوزت الواحدة.
ثمّة ضوء ضئيل
ثمّة ألم عظيم".

It is a queer and fantastic world. Why can't people have what they want? The things were all there to content everybody; yet everybody has got the wrong thing. Perhaps you can make head or tail of it; it is beyond me.
Is there any terrestrial paradise where, amidst the whispering of the olive-leaves, people can be with whom they like and have what they like and take their ease in shadows and in coolness? Or are all men's lives like the lives of us good people — like the lives of the Ashburnhams, of the Dowells, of the Ruffords — broken, tumultuous, agonized, and unromantic lives, periods punctuated by screams, by imbecilities, by deaths, by agonies? Who the devil knows?

Isn't there any heaven where old beautiful dances, old beautiful intimacies prolong themselves?