He is alone like me. Alone with his memories and the heavy past he drags after him like a ball and chain. (p73) - Marie Vieux-Chauvet

Ah! These long sleepless nights when even the air you breathe resounds with a life of its own, when each hour falls on the heart like a tolling bell! How these nights have furrowed my face and aged me! (p146)

Alone again, she had invented touchingly naïve myths to console herself: a leaf whirling in the wind, a butterfly whether black or alive with color, the hooting of an owl or the graceful song of a nightingale, everything seemed pregnant with meaning. (chapter 8)

I am like a fruit fallen before ripening, rotting under the tree unnoticed. (p4)