The Unhappiness of Being a Single Man: Essential Stories

THE NEXT VILLAGE

MY GRANDFATHER used to say: “Life is astonishingly short. When I look back now, it all seems so squashed together that I can hardly understand how a young person could, say, decide to ride to the next village without being afraid—even without any unlucky accidents—that the span of a normal, happy life would not be nearly long enough for him to get there.”