Now that is what I thought of in the space of time it took to smoke a cigarette on my divan at the Astolat—that, and several thousand more items.
That is why, so to speak, I had nodded courteously at the Ghoul.
He is always hanging around.
One has only to turn one's head fast enough—and there he is.
Most people, by the cortico-schizoid mechanism I have described a few pages back, partition him off.
He is not behind me, they convince themselves.
But he is.
There are always exactly enough Ghouls to go round. Billions of people apply the blindfold technique in another way:
He is not a Ghoul, they say, but the God of Heaven.
The Eternal Grocer, who will dole out milk and honey forever.