“There was nothing to be done. From then on, there were flowers waiting for me every time we met, and in the end I gave in, because I was disarmed by the spontaneity of giving and understood tha Lucie cared for it; perhaps her tongue-tied state, her lack of verbal eloquence, made her think of flowers as a form of speech; not in the sense of heavy-handed conventional flower symbolism, but in a sense still more archaic, more nebulous, more instinctive, prelinguistic; perhaps, having always been sparing of words, she longed for that mute stage of evolution when there were no words and people communicated by simple gestures”

“But in truth there was more expression in the flower than was yet in the face. The flower expressed what God was thinking of when He made it; the face, what the girl was thinking of her self. When she ceased thinking of herself, then, like the flower, she would show what God was thinking of when he made her.”

“She understood. They were plastic flowers of words—but they looked nice on the surface.”

“When I was going out with her, it always seemed that her actions were instinctive. But then I was resistant to the whole idea that women were or could be manipulative. This may tell you more about me than it does about her. And even if I were to decide, at this late stage, that she was and always had been calculating, I’m not sure it would help matters. By which I mean: help me.”

“My mother said I should have a 'change of scenery.' The word scenery made be think of a play. And as we were driving around, it made sense that way. Because no matter how much the scenery changed, we were still on the same stage.”

“Because if it is to spite her,' Biddy pursued, 'I should think -but you know best- that might be better and more independently done by caring nothing for her words. And if it is to gain her over, I should think -but you know best- she was not worth gaining over.”