SOURCE (Paris Review, "Breaking It Down" by Lydia Davis)
I was listening to the radio to improve my listening skills ( because usually I listen and read transcript at the same time ) and they talked about the text below. In the sentence "And I would go on living like that. I would be able to go on living",
"Would" is in the past or the present (conditional)?
I don't really understand those sentences if she's talking about "go on living like that" and being able to "go on living" in the past when she was with her or right now in the present.
And once she lay over against me late in the night and she started talking, her breath in my ear, and she just went on and on, and talked faster and faster, and couldn't stop, and I loved it, I just felt that all that life in her was running into me too, I had so little life in me. Her life, her fire was coming into me in that hot breath in my ear, and I just wanted her to go on talking forever right there next to me, and I would go on living, like that, I would be able to go on living, but without her I don't know.
Then you forget some of it all, maybe most of it all, almost all of it, in the end, and you work hard at remembering everything now so you won't ever forget, but you can kill it too by thinking about it too much, though you can't help thinking about it nearly all the time.
Best Answer
Would is the preterite (past) form of the modal verb will. It can be interpreted as future in the past, just as could indicates ability in the past. See English modal verbs | past forms.
However, in the referenced sentence, it seems that it is used to express a wish that was not fulfilled. There seems to be an implicit "if" that is omitted from the sentence. It could have been written as a conditional using the past subjunctive mood:
Would can be used to express wishes, as in "would that it were true". See Use of the past subjunctive.