Continued from:
By the time he gets to where the libraries are, and less stimulus is discovered, the outfits being less revealing, the lentils and the sincere concern that his apartment is burning down presently have returned to the forefront of his thought. His works, he has to assume, are not much longer for this world. It was not so long ago that their fixity appeared more enduring than his own. He has started sweating, into blue jeans and boot socks, at about the highest rate of production his body is capable of, but a pair of effortless seniors come strutting out of the air-conditioned library to make those works appear all the more disastrous and all the more in need of resolution. Without great works, Anthony may as well be reduced to a puddle and so depart. Painting feels all the more important, this wasteful excursion another blight — his others evident when he catches his miserable appearance in the Young Research Library’s pristine windows and ample endowment. A pace and dedication far greater, terribly greater than any so far undertaken, must be endured. The possibility of catastrophe is high, and his talent, ever in doubt, nags at his brittle confidence. The building he enters is at no such risk of collapse.