"The Southern nights grew cooler. The rain came every day. / Long after Hallie had gone to bed one night Dove sat alone on their balcony. Every time a breeze from the river passed, another of the lights below went out, till it seemed the breeze was blowing them out. When the windows both sides of the streets were darkened he turned up the lamp in the small room where she slept. / Across her face a shadow lay, leaving her mouth defenseless to the light. She slept on not knowing how the river breeze had just blown out the last of the lights. Nor how the rainwind was making their room cooler than before. / Nor yet how softly now the night traffic moved two stories down. And how all the anguish he had felt for his ignorance was gone for the first time in his life. And nothing mattered, it seemed in that moment, but that this woman should sleep on, and never know that the wind was blowing out the lights. / Somewhere in the court below someone began playing a piano softly, as though fearing to waken her."
January 1, 1970
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A_Walk_on_the_Wild_Side