“They had known each other intimately, as husband and wife, countless times, He had held her with tenderness and passion, but never with such rampant wildness.”

“He had never loved anything except what was inevitable. The people fate had imposed on him, the world as it appeared to him, everything in his life he had not been able to avoid...For the rest, for everything he had to choose, he made himself love, which is not the same thing. No doubt he had known the feeling of wonderment, passion, and even moments of tenderness. But each moment had sent him on to other moments, each person to others, and he had loved nothing he had chosen, except what was little by little imposed on him by circumstance, had lasted as much by accident as by intention, and finally became necessary: Jessica.”

“They knew each other. He knew her and so himself, for in truth he had never known himself. And she knew him and so herself, for although she had always known herself she had never been able to recognize it until now.”

“He says, “Your husband fucked my wife.”We look at each other and this time it’s different. Now I know him.“My husband didn’t fuck your wife.” My voice is soft. Not amorous, but the tone of a bewildered child. “They had a relationship, then came home and fucked us.”

“The silence was a comfortable one, as if they had known each other for a long time. This was a feeling about which Louis had read in books, but which he had never experienced until now.”

“The wife did not leave her own room, the husband had not been at home for three days. The children ran wild all over the house; the English governess quarreled with the housekeeper, and wrote”