AN ASIDE, just a short one, on the subject of the practical value of literature. I think that I supposed I had discovered one of the functions of literature: to show us how to behave under unusual circumstances. Since I was still at an age when most circumstances seemed unusual to me, I was grateful for all the help I could get, . . .

     What I recalled seeing was the painting that Andy had been working on for the last month or so, but the view I had gotten was much different from any I’d had before. . . .

“I’M HUNGRY,” said Martha one night. She sat up in bed suddenly, interrupting what I was doing to her. Margot also sat up suddenly, interrupting what I was doing to her, and said, “Me, too.”

IT BECAME MY HABIT, on Saturday mornings, after spending the night in the twins’ bed, to climb back down the ladder, scamper to the ground outside the courtyard wall, and slink around to the front door, in a crouch, staying below the windows. . . .

     For years—primarily, but not exclusively, my childhood years—I supposed that there was a clear demarcation between fantasy and reality, something like the edge of the sidewalk at the margin of the park we called Paradise. . . .

FOR THE NEXT FEW MONTHS, life was a fantasy. Nearly every Friday I would go to the Fine Arts Theater with the girls. There I would eat éclairs and practice drinking my coffee black, the three of us sitting at a little table in a corner of the lobby, chatting like young flâneurs.

     I began to twitch. The muscles in my thighs and lips and eyelids began to ripple and flutter. I am, of course, looking at that morning through older eyes, but it seems to me that even then, . . .

     “Time to get up,” said Margot. “Our Father loves his breakfast,” said Martha, “and he loves to have his women around him while he eats.” . . .

THE NEXT MORNING, I woke early. This was unusual, since I was, in those days, a heavy sleeper. At home, I slept as late as I could, and when I finally did wake up, or when my mother woke me with a shout up the stairs, I lingered lazily in bed for a while longer, trying to recapture and recapitulate my dreams, . . .

AT THE TOP of the ladder, at the windowsill, I hesitated, waiting for my eyes to adjust. Their room was darker than the night outside, and there seemed to be a mist within it thicker than the fog.     “Come here, Peter,” said Martha, whispering.