“Hildebranda had a universal conception of love, and she believed that whatever happened to one love affected all other loves throughout the world.”

“She belived that whatever happened to one love affected other loves throught the world .”

“She had never imagined that curiosty was one of the many masks of love .”

“The truth is that Dr. Juvenal Urbino's suit had never been undertaken in the name of love, and it was curious, to say the least, that a militant Catholic like him would offer her only worldly goods: security, order, happiness, contiguous numbers that, once they were added together, might resemble love, almost be love. But they were not love, and these doubts increased her confusion, because she was also not convinced that love was really what she most needed to live.”

“his mysterious resources had awakened in her a curiosity that was difficult to resist, but she had never imagined that curiosity was one of the many masks of love.”

“She knew that he loved her above all else, more than anything in the world, but only for his own sake.”

“She took refuge in her newborn son. she had felt him leave her body with a sensation of relief at freeing herself from something that did not belong to her and she had been horrified at herself when she confirmed that she did not feel the slightest affection for that calf from her womb the midwife showed her in the raw, smeared with grease and blood and with the umbilical cord rolled around his neck. But in her lonliness in the palace she learned to know him, they learned to know each other, and she discovered with great delight that one does not love one's children just because they are one's children but becuase of the friendship formed while raising them.”