Marathe and Kate at Ryle's (pp. 777–778)
‘Katherine, I am, in English, moribund. I have no legs, no Swiss honor, no leaders who will fight the truth. I am not alive, Katherine. I roll from skiing lodge to tavern, frequently drinking, alone, wishing for my death, locked inside my pain in the heart. I wish for my death but have not the courage to make actions to cause death. I twice try to roll over the side of a tall Swiss hill but cannot bring myself. I curse myself for cowardice and inutile. I roll about, hoping to be hit by a vehicle of someone else, but at the last minute rolling out of the path of vehicles on Autoroutes, for I am unable to will my death. The more pain in my self, the more I am inside the self and cannot will my death, I think. I feel I am chained in a cage of the self, from the pain. Unable to care or choose anything outside it. Unable to see anything or feel anything outside my pain.’
Context
The cage of the self, from the man who jumped too well: Marathe's moribund years restate the essay's closed circuit in his own grammar — pain driving the self deeper into the self until even suicide is out of reach (the Next Train cultist now unable NOT to roll clear). The theme's encagement strand made autobiography, told across a table to the book's designated case, neither knowing who the other is.