Metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic me… - Milan Kundera

It was futile to attack with reason the stout wall of irrational feelings that, as is known, is the stuff of which the female mind is made.

The engineer’s ready capitulation, however, did not hide from the poet’s mother the sad realization that the adventure into which she had plunged so impulsively — and which had seemed so intoxicatingly beautiful — had no turned out to be the great, mutually fulfilling love she was convinced she had a full right to expect. Her father was the owner of two prosperous Prague pharmacies, and her morality was based on strict give-and-take. For her part, she had invested everything in love (she had even been willing to sacrifice her parents and their peaceful existence); in turn, she had expected her partner to invest an equal amount of capital of feelings in the common account. To redress the imbalance, she gradually withdrew her emotional deposit and after the wedding presented a proud, severe face to her husband.

من يعش في الغربة يمشِ في فضاء خاوٍ فوق الأرض مجردًا من شبكة الرعاية التي تحيط بها، كل كائن بشري، بلاده الأم حيث توجد عائلته وزملائه وأصدقاؤه، وحيث يستطيع أن يتواصل مع الآخرين دون جهد، باللغة التي يعرفها منذ الصغر.