“Oh ho ho ho”

Robert Moses on the wane, his power gone. From Robert Caro’s The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (1974):

And as they walked down the steps of the cottage to the author’s car, Moses did something that made him feel for an instant that the man walking behind him was not Robert Moses but Paul. The author had, unknown to Robert Moses, spent time with his dead brother. Paul Moses had managed to keep his chin up even in discussing the misfortunes of his life, but sometimes, drifting into reveries during lulls in the conversation, he had — unconsciously, it seemed — uttered a phrase, a sigh, almost a moan, that hinted at the depths of the melancholy within him: a painful, reflective sighing: “Oh ho ho ho. Oh ho ho ho.” The author had speculated that so unusual an expression might be inherited from their father. But in all the times he had previously talked with Robert Moses, the author had never heard him make that sound of discouragement and something close to despair.

But he made it now.

This post is my last from The Power Broker.

Related reading
All OCA Robert Caro posts (Raindrop.io)