“I am seeing that woman for the first and last time. I will never in my lifetime see her again.’ My thoughts floated aimlessly, like a cork down an uncharted river. For a moment they bobbed around the woman beneath the thatch. What did she matter to me? But I could not rid myself of the thought that, for an instant, she was a part of my life that would never be repeated; from my point of view it was as if she were already dead: a brief delay of the train, a call from inside the house, and that woman would never have existed in my life.Everything seemed fleeting, transitory, futile, nebulous. My brain was not functioning well, but María was a recurring vision, something hazy and melancholy.”

“I watched my mother do what she did best, and realized there would never be a way to cut myself from her entirely. No matter how strong or weak I was, she was a part of me, as crucial as my own heart. I would never be strong enough, in all my life, to do without her.”

“MY WOMAN My woman came with me as far as Brest,she got off the train and stayed on the platform,she grew smaller and smaller,she became a kernel of wheat in the infinite blue,then all I could see were the tracks. Then she called out from Poland, but I couldn't answer,I couldn't ask, "Where are you, my rose, where are you?""Come," she said, but I couldn't reach her,the train was going like it would never stop,I was choking with grief. Then patches of snow were rotting on sandy earth,and suddenly I knew my woman was watching :"Did you forget me," she asked, "did you forget me?"Spring marched with muddy bare feet on the sky. Then stars lighted on the telegraph wires,darkness dashed the train like rain,my woman stood under the telegraph poles,her heart pounding as if she were in my arms,the poles kept disappearing, she didn't move,the train was going like it would never stop,I was choking with grief. Then suddenly I knew I'd been on that train for years- I'm still amazed at how or why I knew it -and always singing the same great song of hope,I'm forever leaving the cities and women I love,and carrying my losses like wounds opening inside me,I'm getting closer, closer to somewhere.”

“Sometimes, as Eve was born from one of Adam’s ribs, a woman was born during my sleep from a cramped position of my thigh. Formed from the pleasure I was on the point of enjoying, she, I imagined, was the one offering it to me. My body, which felt in hers my own warmth, would try to find itself inside her, I would wake up. The rest of humanity seemed very remote compared to this woman I had left scarcely a few moments before; my cheek was still warm from her kiss, my body aching from the weight of hers. If, as sometimes happens, she had the features of a woman I had known in life, I would devote myself entirely to this end: to finding her again, like those who go off on a journey to see a longed-for city with their own eyes and imagine that one can enjoy in reality the charm of a dream. Little by little, the memory of her would fade, I had forgotten the girl of my dream.”

“I know…I will never see or meet her again, because she is just a ghost from my dreams. In spite of this, she remains with me as a spark of hope. Because when she throws herself desperately into my arms and my hands embrace her, for the first and last time in my life I feel true love”.”

“From the first day I met her, she was the only woman to me. Every day of that voyage I loved her more, and many a time since have I kneeled down in the darkness of the night watch and kissed the deck of that ship because I knew her dear feet had trod it. She was never engaged to me. She treated me as fairly as ever a woman treated a man. I have no complaint to make. It was all love on my side, and all good comradeship and friendship on hers. When we parted she was a free woman, but I could never again be a free man.”