... in the dead of the night. His wife slept, fifteen inches away, on the other side of the Berlin Wall, breathing regularly . . . oblivious . . . She was turned away from him, on her side, her knees bent. How nice it would be to roll toward her and tuck his knees in behind hers and press his chest upon her back. Once they were able . . . once, when they were so close . . . they could do that without waking each other up ... in the dead of the night.

The end of the trading day was like the end of a battle. After five o'clock the Masters of the Universe took care of all the things people in other businesses spent the entire day doing. They figured out the "net net," which is to say, the actual profit and loss for the day's work. They reviewed the markets, reviewed strategies, discussed personnel problems, researched new issues, and did all the reading of the financial press that was forbidden during the daily battle. They told war stories and beat their breasts and yodeled, if they deserved it. The one thing you never did was simply go home to the wife'n'kiddies.

How should he look? Should he put his jacket and tie back on? He had on a white shirt, the pants of a gray nailhead worsted suit and a pair of black cap-toed shoes. With the tie and the jacket on, he would look terribly Wall Street, terribly conservative. They might resent that. He hurried into the other bedroom, which had become his dressing room, and took a tweed jacket with a plaid design from the closet and slipped it on. Time rolling by, rolling by. Much more casual, relaxed; a man in his own home, completely relaxed. But the soft tweed jacket didn't go with the hard-finished pants. Besides ... a sport jacket . . . a sport... a young rip who takes wild rides in a sports roadster ... He took off the tweed jacket and threw it on the daybed and hurried back to the master bedroom. His jacket and tie were strewn across a stuffed chair. He put on the tie and pulled it up into a tight knot. Time rolling by, rolling by. He put on the jacket and buttoned it. He lifted his chin and squared his shoulders. Wall Street. He went into the bathroom and brushed his hair back. He lifted his chin again. Be strong. A Master of the Universe.

Had to kill some time to make it plausible that he went to Freddy Button's building and dropped off a note and came back. He walked over to Madison Avenue ... the Whitney Museum ... the Carlyle Hotel . . . Three men came out of the door that led to the Cafe Carlyle. They were about his age. They were talking and laughing, with their heads thrown back, blissfully boiled ... All three carried attache cases, and two of them wore dark suits, white shirts, and pale yellow ties with small print patterns. These pale yellow ties had become the insignia of the worker bees of the business world . . . What the hell did they have to laugh and crow about, other than the alcoholic buzz in their brains, the poor deluded—

He was experiencing the resentment of those who discover that, despite their own grave condition, the world goes on about its business, heartless, without even so much as a long face.