And now the fact that I might get along without them is no discredit to their charm or to you.
It is all so hard to put in words, Carley.

To lie down with death and get up with death was nothing.

To face one's degradation was nothing.
But to come home an incomprehensibly changed man--and to see my old life as strange as if it were the new life of another planet--to try to slip into the old groove--well, no words of mine can tell you how utterly impossible it was.
My old job was not open to me, even if I had been able to work.

The government that I fought for left me to starve, or to die of my maladies like a dog, for all it cared.
I could not live on your money, Carley.

My people are poor, as you know.
So there was nothing for me to do but to borrow a little money from my friends and to come West.