He looked at her as a man might look at a faded flower he had plucked, in which it was difficult for him to trace the beauty that had made him pick and so destroy it

He looked at her as a man looks at a faded flower he has gathered, with difficulty recognizing in it the beauty for which he picked and ruined it. And in spite of this he felt that then, when his love was stronger, he could, if he had greatly wished it, have torn that love out of his heart; but now when as at that moment it seemed to him he felt no love for her, he knew that what bound him to her could not be broken.

"He was looking at her, but in a distracted manner, as if she was something to look at while he waited for something else.”(Page 15)

His serenity was but the array of wild flowers niched in his ruin.

By plucking her petals you do not gather the beauty of the flower.

But what happens when her beauty is torn from her like a cover from a book? Will he care to read her then, although her pages speak of nothing but love for him?

She couldn’t make him look just like any other man to her. He looked like the love thoughts of women. He could be a bee to a blossom – a pear tree blossom in the spring. He seemed to be crushing scent out of the world with his footsteps. Crushing aromatic herbs with every step he took. Spices hung above him. He was a glance from God.

He looked at her uncomfortably; blinking, you know, like one not sure whether he was awake or asleep.

Poor dead flower? when did you forget you were a flower?

Looking at his wife as one looks at a valuable piece of property which has suffered some damage.

Ah, see,' he sang, 'the shamefast, virgin rose
first bursting her green bud so timidly,
half hidden and half bare: the less she shows
herself, the lovelier she seems to be.
Now see her bosom, budding still, unclose
and look! She droops, and seems no longer she—
not she who in her morning set afire
a thousand lads and maidens with desire. So passes in the passing of a day
the leaf and flower from our mortal scene,
nor will, though April come again, display
its bloom again, nor evermore grow green.

A young bride is like a plucked flower; but a guilty wife is like a flower that had been walked over.

he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass.

And so, yet again, we crush the blossom in our hand, lift our gaze from the tumbling petals, and ask the world, ‘Where, then, is this beauty you promised?