why ask it?

"It´s no use having an enormous house -and for work and relative freedom of each it is indispensable that it should be so-   D. and I still have to make a great effort in order to be alone together for moment.  I regret none of it, on the contrary.  Each time I meet a bachelor of a certain age, a couple without children, aging or aged Bohemians, I can´t help feeling sorry for them.

And I know very well that one day, when all the children have flown the nest, we will think nostalgically of our house when it was so full.  It is true that I will be really old then.  But will I think myself old?  I am beginning to wonder.   My carcass will have shrunk, surely.  But will the rest change?  For the better?  For the worse?  If I live long enough I will know the answer one day.  But it is not impossible that I will keep putting it off until later, until so late that no one will be able to give it, which would explain why we never have enough satisfactory answers to these questions.   So why ask it? "

When I was old - Georges Simenon
first edition 1971 pág. 115