“Suddenly the door opened and in stomped a giant reeking of the river, and before anyone knew what was happening, he had grabbed a chair, smashed it in two, and chased the terrified customers into a corner. The three youngsters pressed against the wall like periwinkles in the rain, but at the very last moment, when the man had picked up half a chair in each hand and seemed ready for the kill, he burst into song, and after conducting himself in "Gray Dove Where Have You Been?" he flung aside the halves of the chair, paid the waiter for the damage, and, turning to the still-shaking customers, said, "Gentlemen I am the hangman's assistant," whereupon he left, pensive and miserable. Perhaps he was the one who, last year at the Holesovice slaughterhouse, put a knife to my neck, shoved me into a corner, took out a slip of paper, and read me a poem celebrating the beauties of the countryside at Ricany, then apologized saying he hadn't found any other way of getting people to listen to his verse.”

“Maybe I had been making a greater monster of him than he really was, or maybe I was still under his influence, for I was certain that he wanted me to believe he was no more than a harmless man who happened to use vampirism to get what he desired. Some remnant of his mesmerism was still upon me. I had never been able to shake the feeling that he was tucked away in a corner of my mind, that he could read my thoughts, know what I was thinking. He had done something to me, but what that was, I had never been able to discover. All I knew was that the feeling had been with me since the morning I woke up and found myself in Venice.”

“She watched beneath her lashes as his chair rocked with his weight. MacLean scowled and grabbed the edge of the table. Angus had cut varying lengths from each chair so that some rocked, while others were at a distinct forward slant so that you had to press back to keep from sliding into the floor."Is something wrong, Lord MacLean?""This chair." He scooted forward and slipped a little. With a scowl, he stood and pushed his chair to one side, selecting another."Lord MacLean-""Dougal," he said firmly, sitting down in the new chair. This one rocked backward, and he lurched, as if afraid it would topple over completely.Sophia coughed to cover her amusement. From the dark scowl turned her way, she hadn't succeeded. "That's it." Dougal shoved back the chair and stood,glancing about the room. "Ah!" He strode forward and picked out a thin book of sermons from a set on a side table. He lifted the back of his chair, placed a book beneath one leg, and sat down. "Much better."Sophia wished he weren't quite so enterprising. She and Angus ha worked for hours to make every chair a uniquely uncomfortable experience.”

“In the eyes of others a man is a poet if he has written one good poem. In his own he is only a poet at the moment when he is making his last revision to a new poem. The moment before, he was still only a potential poet; the moment after, he is a man who has ceased to write poetry, perhaps forever.”

“He moved to the faded red chair she'd indicated. As he lowered himself into it, there was a loud crack. One of the wooden legs snapped and broke, just as Sophia and Angus had planned when they'd sawed it half-through.A normal man would have been tossed to the floor, but with a little twist, MacLean shifted his weight forward and managed to remain upright, turning to regard the chair as it collapsed.Sophia swept to her feet. "Goodness! How horrid!" She narrowed her gaze accusingly at the chair. There was nothing like a little humiliation to set a man against a location, and it was a pity MacLean hadn't been thrown to the floor as she'd planned.MacLean bent and picked up a piece of the broken chair, his expression unfathomable. "Horrid, indead."Her desire to smile fled. Did he suspect something? Could he see where Angus had cut the chair let partway through?MacLean hefted the leg in his hand, his mouth thinned.Sophia cleared her throat. "I'll call the butler to remove that."His gaze locked with hers.The chair leg still in his hand,he walked toward her.Sophia licked her suddenly dry lips. She didn't know this man, not really. What was he going to do?She gripped the arms of her chair. Should she run for help? Surely not. Nothing she'd heard had indicated MacLean was a man of violence. Of course, everything she knew of him was mere heresay-He stopped before her and stook looking down into her face with the faintest of smiles. He didn't look angry; he looked knowing. As if he understood exactly what she'd done and why.A fear of another kind gripped her. Surely, he didn't. There was no way he could-MacLean leaned forward. Sophia's heart jumped, her skin warming oddly when his arm brushed her shoulder as he leaned past her...and tossed the chair leg onto the unlit fireplace.”

“She had signed her own death-warrant. He kept telling himself over and over that he was not to blame, she had brought it on herself. He had never seen the man. He knew there was one. He had known for six weeks now. Little things had told him. One day he came home and there was a cigar-butt in an ashtray, still moist at one end, still warm at the other. There were gasoline-drippings on the asphalt in front of their house, and they didn't own a car. And it wouldn't be a delivery-vehicle, because the drippings showed it had stood there a long time, an hour or more. And once he had actually glimpsed it, just rounding the far corner as he got off the bus two blocks down the other way. A second-hand Ford. She was often very flustered when he came home, hardly seemed to know what she was doing or saying at all.He pretended not to see any of these things; he was that type of man, Stapp, he didn't bring his hates or grudges out into the open where they had a chance to heal. He nursed them in the darkness of his mind. That's a dangerous kind of a man.If he had been honest with himself, he would have had to admit that this mysterious afternoon caller was just the excuse he gave himself, that he'd daydreamed of getting rid of her long before there was any reason to, that there had been something in him for years past now urging Kill, kill, kill. Maybe ever since that time he'd been treated at the hospital for a concussion.("Three O'Clock")”