Long ago, when I lived just down the road from here, I was confident in my thundering ignorance that someday I'd have a house--a villa or chalet--overlooking Lake Geneva. The sunlit shimmer of the lake's waters would illuminate the ceiling of my study in the morning as I worked industriously at the huge autobiography my publishers and fans had been pressing me to write. Grandchildren frolic outside. Wife takes her ease on the balcony. From across the water peals the bell of a church hidden in the Chablais Alps. Wine awaits, and simple but hearty regional fare: cheese, bread, air-cured meats, grapes. The night skies are strewn with stars. Sleep is deep and voluptuous. On one weekend a month I take the train to Paris. In the winter it snows peacefully, bringing down no power lines. 

Reality is like a loud raspberry in the second movement of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto.