and his relief at being able in all finality now to laugh his filial duties away and out of existence was exhausting but also insuperable it choked him but still he did not laugh he purveyed for himself the more august of exits and honored her great tracking eye by ignoring it unfailingly and latching on to the under-oiled door in her small flat and opening it and dashing down her stairs and carried forward falling off the shoulders of her imprecation he forever forsook her streets and left her to the mockery of living like a word between parentheses .