“So, as she walked down the stairs into the club, she was looking forward to a seething, teeming, wriggling, wiggling throng of dancers, many of whom she'd recognize: she wanted to see former pupils, local shopkeepers, museum regulars, all of whom would look at her as if to say, "Here we are! What kept you?”

“How is it possible to miss a woman whom you kept at a distance, so that when she was gone you would not miss her?”

“There was something about my face,she said, that she couldn't stand. Something about my eyes, the way I looked at her, the fact I even existed. She'd always tell me to stop looking at her. She'd always scream it. Like I might attack her. Stop looking at me, she'd scream. You just stop looking at me, she'd scream.She put my hand in the fire once.Just to see if it would burn, she said. Just to check if it was a regular hand, she said.I was 6 years old then.I remember because it was my birthday.”

“It was a face which darkness could kill in an instant a face as easily hurt by laughter or light 'We think differently at night' she told me oncelying back languidly And she would quote Cocteau'I feel there is an angel in me' she'd say 'whom I am constantly shocking' Then she would smile and look away light a cigarette for me sigh and riseand stretch her sweet anatomy let fall a stocking”

“Good with languages," she murmured. With everything she learned about him, he got more and more interesting. Or more mysterious, depending on how you looked at it. "So, good with languages, shovels, and igloos. Anything else?"The smug look he tossed at her was so wicked it shivered right down her spine. Walked right into that, hadn't she. She shook her head and, looking away to hide her blush, moved her cardboard forward one spot. Without a doubt, he would be good at...other stuff. Jesus.”

“She was sitting up now. My arm was around her and she was leaning back against me, and we were quite calm. She was looking into my eyes with that way she had of looking that made you wonder whether she really saw out of her own eyes. They would look on and on after every one else's eyes in the world would have stopped looking. She looked as though there were nothing on earth she would not look at like that, and really she was afraid of so many things,”