“When afterwards I tried to tell my aunt, she punished me again for my wicked persistence. Then, as I said, everyone was forbidden to listen to me, to hear a word about it. Even my fairy-tale books were taken away from me for a time - because I was too 'imaginative'. Eh! Yes, they did that! My father belonged to the old school.... And my story was driven back upon myself. I whispered it to my pillow - my pillow that was often damp and salt to my whispering lips with childish tears. And I added always to my official and less fervent prayers this one heartfelt request: 'Please God I may dream of the garden. O! take me back to my garden.”

“…She kissed me on my thin lips and all my words were pushed back into my mouth. “I don’t want to die,” she whispered, “but I need to lose the shackles of this multitude of hearts.”

“[In my dream] they slide their lips over my skin, whispering whispering whispering. They tell me their names, they tell me their lives, they tell me their pain...I can't struggle, I can't stop laughing, I can't resist these people who once were.”

“It’s always you and me.” I nodded again and felt my lips quivering. He kept whispering, “Always me and my Sylvie, yeah?” “Yeah,” I whispered.”

“Her beauty was a divine delicacy that I could only hold within my dreams. I tested my dream of her beauty, and I whispered her grace to the angels. The sounds of heaven replied back to me, telling me that her beauty transcended not only my dreams, but even heaven.”

“I lie down on my bed, my back to the window, and the tears finally arrive, running down my face, into my ears, onto my pillow. I lie there for a long time, for hours maybe, and right as I'm about to finally drift to sleep I think I hear the flutter of Christian's wings as he flies away.”