But said he did, and told a lie,”
This was a kind of light to stand in, not only searching, but one that manufactures repentance faster than a man can dispose of the goods.
Two things began to dawn on me: first, that, although, as the subject of Susannah's poem it was natural I should be all around in it, on the other hand, looking at the poem as a diary, I was more ubiquitous than seemed reasonable: second, that the diary was getting on my nerves. In fact, passing time was becoming a sort of running commentary on Susannah. It dawned upon me that Susannah and I had fallen into the habit of occupying each other's horizons. Then said to myself, “I'm in for it. It's the way the world is made.” This was toward the end of June. The Violetta was in sight of the California coast, and the blue mountains of the Coast Range were a fringe along the eastern skyline by day.
One night I sat with Sadler, looking across the water toward where our native land lay in the darkness, he twankling on his banjo and I thinking of the condition of being a running commentary with an occupied horizon. By and by he began to mutter and grumble into a sort of tune whose joints didn't fit. On the whole, as a tune, it was an offence to music, and didn't agree with my idea of what is morally right. But it surely suited him. He began to sing to it, and the words didn't suit me either.
“When first I kissed Susannah—
The facts I state precise—
The forty million little stars
They winked their little eyes,
They seemed to say, 'You dassn't'—
I guessed the same was true,—