Explore "Nexus" by Henry Miller on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Ah, the monotonous thrill that comes of walking the streets on a winter's morn, when iron girders are frozen to the ground and the milk in the bottle rises like the stem of a mushroom. A septentrional day, let us say, when the most stupid animal would not dare poke a nose out of his hole. To accost a stranger on such a day and ask him for alms would be unthinkable. In that biting, gnawing cold, the icy wind whistling through the glum, canyoned streets, no one in his right mind would stop long enough to reach into his pocket in search of a coin. On a morning like this, which a comfortable banker would describe as ‘clear and brisk', a beggar has no right to be hungry or in need of carfare. Beggars are for warm, sunny days, when even the sadist at heart stops to throw crumbs to the birds.
It was on a day such as this that I would deliberately gather together a batch of samples in order to sally forth and call on one of my father's customers, knowing in advance that I would get no order but driven by an all-consuming hunger for conversation.