I showed up at Marcus's right on 5:00 p.m. The sun was still incredibly high in the sky. I sunk dazzled and faint on his doorstep after I'd rung his bell and got no answer. I was still there centering myself ten minutes later when Marcus drove up with Barrie Byrd, for whom he had been gardening. He very warmly and civilly saw me up to his "treehouse," and within minutes produced a fabulous supper of spaghetti and burgundy that still hadn't gone bad. Then Annie showed up, and the bud and the coffee and the conversation went on for hours. In the interstices we listened to Vivaldi and endless Mahler. These, we know, are the good times. Bad times, by all accounts, are on the way. Mayans, Hindus and Native American shamans concur that cataclysm will come, probably in some sickening planet-threatening way, by, latest, 2012 a.d. Politically it's already here. Western Civilisation has not seen a moment like this since approximately the year 190: The Boy Emperor thinks that acting like the emperor is all there is to being the emperor. We're in trouble.

I could be in another kind of trouble, having lied to the blameless but too-scrupulous deskclerk Walter, saying that I had not seen Friday, when I had, and knew very well that he was going to try to hide out and sneak back into my room after Walter had come round to see if he were here. My conscience is not clean on this one, and I'd oh so much rather be alone.