“I detected the fragrance of Delgadina's soul as she slept on her side.”

“As I kissed her the heat of her body increased, and it exhaled a wild, untamed fragrance.”

“But the next morning, while night owls slept, I climbed trembling to her cubicle and woke her, weeping aloud with a crazed love that lasted until it was carried away without mercy by the violent wind of real life.”

“I told her about my life, I read into her ear the first drafts of my Sunday columns in which, without my saying so, she and she alone was present.”

“A great commotion immobilized her in her center of gravity, planted her in her place, and her defensive will was demolished by the irresistible anxiety to discover what the orange bells and whistles and the invisible globes on the other side of death were like.”

“I knew what she thought of them by the changes in her silence”

“From then on I had her in my memory with so much clarity that I could do what I wanted with her. I changed the color of her eyes according to my state of mind: the color of water when she woke, the color of syrup when she laughed, the color of light when she was annoyed. I dressed her according to the age and condition that suited my changes of mood: a novice in love at twenty, a parlor whore at forty, the queen of Babylon at seventy, a saint at one hundred.”