And then he felt the misery of his life.

He was older than the days he had seen and the breaths he had drawn.

"Like a dog!" he said, it was as if the shame of it should outlive him.

Miraculously, smoke curled out of his own mouth, his nose, his ears, his eyes, as if his soul had been extinguished within his lungs at the very moment the sweet pumpkin gave up its incensed ghost.

Everything in his life now seemed to signal: too late.

Perhaps it would have been better if he had killed me; my life is spoilt.

Young man, if I could as easily wipe from my conscience the stain of killing you, as I can this spittle from my face, you should not live another minute.

He was like one who had half fainted, and could neither recover nor complete the swoon.

For all I know,he may be a prince in disguise; he rather looks like one, by the way- like a prince who has abdicated in a fit of magnanimity, and has been in a state of disgust ever since.

He felt old and miserable, going through life trying to peddle a personality of which people would not even accept a free sample.

...could a face have been fashioned to fit the attitude of his consciousness where it lay suspended between life and death that face would have worn a snarl.

When the raw, harsh liquor had cut the dust from his throat he looked up at a nearby

He couldn't be more than twenty-five, but he obviously lived enough to have things to regret. He looked like he'd taken a long fall a short time ago. Pieces of the man he'd been were jumbled up with the new guy, the lost soul.

He was in that humour when a man will cut off his nose to spite his face