“the deep, pure blue stirs on one’s lips a smile, innocent as itself; like the clouds over the sky, and, as it were, with them, happy memories pass in slow procession over the soul”

“She lies on the stripped bed, looking up at the pinhole in the roof. The sky is blue. Clouds pass over. Sky, air, clouds, the sun and moon; it's fine. It's the same as it ever was. She stares at the small spot of blue. She sleeps. She dreams. She wakes up feeling a little more and a little less like herself.”

“But her's was the misery of innocence, which, like a cloud that passes over the fair moon, for a while hides, but cannot tarnish its brightness.”

“The varicolored cloud dust that the sun has stirred up in the sky was settling by slow degrees.”

“But the past is passed; why moralize upon it? Forget it. See, yon bright son has forgotten it all, and the blue sea, and the blue sky; these have turned over new leaves.Because they have no memory . . . because they are not human.”

“The sea looked as if it had been licked clean, blue and clear and smooth, and there were a few woolly little clouds in the sky. Legend said that these clouds were sheep who had simply wandered over the cliff tops one day, special sheep who now went on grazing in the sky and were never shorn. In any case, they were a good sign.”