I

"We turned into Forty-seventh Street, the boundary between rich man's Kenwood and poor man's Oakwood, passing the locked tavern which lost its license because a fellow had gotten twenty stab wounds there over a matter of eight dollars. This was what Cantabile meant by 'crazy buffaloes'. Where was the victm? He was buried. Who was he? Nobody could tell you. And now others, casually regardant, passed the place in automobiles still thinking of an 'I', and of the past and the prospects of this 'I'. If there was nothing in this but some funny egoism, some illusion that fate was being outwitted, avoidance of the reality of the grave, perhaps it was scarcely worth the trouble. But that remained to be seen."

Saul Bellow (1915-2005). Humboldt's Gift (1975). London: Penguin Books, 2008, p. 190-191