"It was irresponsible for me to have bought this house," he thought. "And yet it is so glamorous, so desirable. I should have inspected it more closely. There are many parts of the building that I've never even looked into. Take this room, for example. It's far too long and narrow to be useful I must have been attracted to the bookshelf and to the books. But now that I look closely, I see that the books are tattered and worthless. I thought that they were valuable, but they're just thrift store discards. And the kitchen -- I don't think it's functional. These hand-carved boards, which I thought were so beautiful -- they obstruct the sink and the stove. I'll have to remove them. And in this room -- what is it, a bedroom? -- the murals are nothing more than the scrawls of children. What could I have been thinking? I have purchased a house that is a shambles. It's going to cost me a fortune just to make it habitable. Look, in the living room the wallpaper is pulled off and the lath is exposed. And here, in the grand ballroom, there's been leakage around the window frames. This huge fireplace is falling in. This passageway, which ought to go to the nursery --it's been blocked off. And this sitting room has no outside wall. No protection from the weather at all. The wind could blow right through. It was self-destructive of me to buy this house. It's financial suicide. What could have attracted me to it? Let's walk around the outside. There are entrances that I didn't know existed. Anyone could come in. It's not secured; there are no locks, no doors. And a garage -- but the garage floor isn't concrete or paved -- it's just sand and rocks. And this outside wall, which I took for marble or granite -- it's just old loose, cracked, unpainted stucco. The yard is a complete wreck -- all concrete and razor-wire, nothing alive. Who's that strange man prowling around? Why was I attracted to this place? Why do I still find it alluring, despite everything that I know about it?"
Later, we all went for a drive in the mountains. It was cold and the roads were completely covered with snow and almost impassable. We arrived too late for the party. "Let's all meet at the Unitarian church," one of the other guests said. "I'm going to kill me a chicken," said another.