"It is easy to measure how far we have come, but who can say how far we have to go?"
This metaphysical doubletalk annoyed me. "I don't know what is happening to people," I said. "Either they act like those over there," I gestured toward the Republic One and Indivisible, "or else they become mystics."
"You find questions without immediate answers mystical, sir?"
"I like my questions to be susceptible to an answer of some kind."
"You are a man of thought."
It amused me to speak intimately to this stranger. "I have lived inside myself a great many years. Naturally my mind has not been idle all the while."
"You have not married?"
"I never had the time."
"Ah." He rowed quietly for some moments. "'Never had the time,'" he repeated thoughtfully.
"You think marriage is important?"
"A man
