“All this time he was sitting up in bed and looking at the woman who was lying beside him and holding his hand in her sleep. He felt an ineffable love for her. Her sleep must have been very light at the moment because she opened her eyes and gazed up at him questioningly. “What are you looking at?” she asked.He knew that instead of waking her he should lull her back to sleep, so he tried to come up with an answer that would plant the image of a new dream in her mind.“I’m looking at the stars,” he said.“Don’t say you’re looking at the stars. That’s a lie. You’re looking down.”“That’s because we’re on an airplane. The stars are below us.”“Oh, in an airplane,” said Tereza, squeezing his hand even tighter and falling asleep again. And Tomas knew that Tereza was looking out of the round window of an airplane flying high above the stars.”

“By revealing to Tomas her dream about jabbing needles under her fingernails, Tereza unwittingly revealed that she had gone through his desk. If Tereza had been any other woman, Tomas would never have spoken to her again. Aware of that, Tereza said to him, Throw me out! But instead of throwing her out, he seized her hand and kissed the tips of her fingers, because at that moment he himself felt the pain under her fingernails as surely as if the nerves of her fingers led straight to his own brain.Anyone who has failed to benefit from the Devil’s gift of compassion (co-feeling) will condemn Tereza coldly for her deed, because privacy is sacred and drawers containing intimate correspondence are not to be opened. But because compassion was Tomas’s fate (or curse), he felt that he himself had knelt before the open desk drawer, unable to tear his eyes from Sabina’s letter. He understood Tereza, and not only was he incapable of being angry with her, he loved her all the more.”

“Tereza had gone back to sleep; he could not. He pictured her death. She was dead and having terrible nightmares; but because she was dead, he was unable to wake her from them. Yes, that is death: Tereza asleep, having terrible nightmares, and he unable to wake her.”

“Kavita looks peaceful when she's sleeping, when the Morphine finally brings her some comfort. Jasu sits in a chair next to the bed and reaches for her frail hand. With his touch, her eyes flutter open and she licks her dried lips. She sees him and smiles. “Jani, you’re back,” she says softly.“I went there, chakli.” He tries to begin slowly, but the words come tumbling out. “I went to Shanti, the orphanage. The man there knows her, he’s met her, Kavi. Her name is Asha now. She grew up in America, her parents are doctors, and she writes stories for newspapers—look, this is hers, she wrote this.” He waves the article in front of her.“America.” Kavita’s voice is barely a whisper. She closes her eyes and a tear drips down the side of her face and into her ear. “So far from home. All this time, she’s been so far from us.”“Such a good thing you did, chakli.” He strokes her hair, pulled back into a loose bun, and wipes her tears away with his rough fingers. “Just imagine if…” He looks down, shakes his head, and clasps her hand between his. He rests his head against their hands and begins to cry. “Such a good thing.”He looks up at her again. “She came looking for us, Kavi. She left this.”Jasu hands her the letter. A small smile breaks through on Kavita’s face. She peers at the page while he recites from memory.“My name is Asha…”

“Isi, I’m trying to say that you’ve been… no, you’re so, you’re–” He stopped."You are,” he said. His hand found hers, and he held her finger tightly, as though he did not dare to do any more than hold her one hand, and look at her, and breathe deeply.”

“Before she realized he was next to her, he had placed his hands over hers on the countertop, then hooped his fingers through hers. Gretel looked up at him, so startled she might as well have been shot.'I just wanted to wake you up', he said.Which is exactly what he did. One look at him and her heart was racing. One look, and whatever had been before was all over.”