The Apple
There was an aching in Rodger's heart which he knew came not from love unsatisfied, but from the persistent and subtle idea that if any or all of his many loves ever were satisfied, it would be his unravelling.
More than anything right now, Rodger loved an apple. He earnestly desired the fruit, but also wished the best for it, and, not knowing what that was, concluded that his only hope was that, before the apple should wither or before he should eat it out of hunger or passion, he should cease to care for it or perhaps come to despise it.
Luckily, he usually only loved more permanent things than apples, though the more permanent they were, the shorter time he loved them. He had once loved a statue with a compassionate face, a soft, mellow expression, and a gray, Greek body draped in folding curtains of marble. He had paid a fortune for it, but as soon as he had got it, had begun to despise it. It's expression seemed to harden, its pose to stiffen, as soon as it was brought into his apartment. Only the day after he got it, he threw it away, and he loathed himself for having loved it. That was his only love that had ever been satisfied.
He loved people too, of course. Once the janitor who cleaned his floor had seemed to him the most tender and delicate person, the most pitiable and deserving old man, and unquestionably the most pure-hearted. It was Rodger's undeniable good fortune that the old man was fired for theft the very day before Rodger had planned to leave a bouquet of roses and a tender letter for him on his desk.
Rodger felt that his affection was a force of its own, driven not by his will, but through it––that his will was the vehicle which his affection took, and the force by which it threatened to undo him.
His intense interest in, his hapless yearning for, his ceaseless thinking of this apple, had interrupted the same quandary of dead-ended desires for a woman––a girl he thought he would never cease to love, but one he knew would never love him and never satisfy his love. He did not know whether to feel relieved or exasperated when, of a sudden, he could think no more of her, and only of this apple.
“Love's satisfaction,” Rodger thought, as he put the apple to his mouth, breathing in its sweet tartness, letting the moisture come to his mouth, urging him to bite. His teeth pressed gently at the apple's skin, not puncturing, hesitating.