On the Road, afterword

Tonight I magnified my calling as enthusiastically -- as joyously as I think I ever have. And yet I was continually distracted by Ginger Grant. Damn.

A parting thought from Jack Kerouac, who understands senseless and relentless Sehnsucht:

The prettiest, shyest one hid far back in the field to watch and she had good reasons because she was absolutely and finally the most beautiful girl Neal and I ever saw in all our lives. She was about sixteen, and had a plains complexion like wild roses, and the bluest eyes, and most lovely hair, and the modesty and quickness of a wild antelope. Every look from us and she flinched. She stood there with the immense winds that blew clear down from Saskatchewan knocking her hair about her lovely head like shrouds, living curls of them. She blushed and blushed. We finished our business with the farmer, took one look at the prairie angel, and drove off, slower now, till dark came and Dean said Ed Wall's ranch was dead ahead. "Oh, a girl like that scares me," I said. "I'd give up everything and throw myself on her mercy and if she didn't want me I'd just as simply go and throw myself off the edge of the world."