“She could only wait. But she was not idle while she waited, because she was holding herself in readiness for whatever it was that she would have to do. She was trying not to be frightened in her mind, and she found that that sort of waiting and thinking really keep a person quite busy.”

“I can't wait for you forever, she found herself thinking as she lay in bed most mornings, thinking about her dreams, waiting for her alarm to ring.”

“She was afraid, but she couldn't just sit around waiting for someone to save her. She had to try to save herself, try to figure it out.”

“She is in love, she craves sugar, eats a dried apricot, another. All at once she is really tired. She will not wait any longer for Romain and goes to bed. She is not guilty because, she keeps telling herself, thrilled, she had no say in it. She falls asleep immediately.”

“And it was no shame to her that she so dreamed. It was no shame that she called before her, one by one, those who had asked her to cross with them the threshold (of marriage) and those who might still ask her. It was no shame that, while her heart said always, "no," she still waited - waited for one whom she knew not, but only knew that she would know him when he came. And it was no shame to her that, even while this was so, she saw herself in the years to come a wife and mother. ”

“Books were her refuge. Having set herself to learn the Russian language, she read every Russian book she could find. But French was the language she preferred, and she read French books indiscriminately, picking up whatever her ladies-in-waiting happened to be reading. She always kept a book in her room and carried another in her pocket.”