“The silver Swan, who living had no Note,when Death approached, unlocked her silent throat.Leaning her breast against the reedy shore,thus sang her first and last, and sang no more:Farewell, all joys! O Death, come close mine eyes!More Geese than Swans now live, more Fools than Wise.”

“In Virginia... all geese are swans.”

“For he who lives more lives than one more deaths than one must die.”

“With her, too, I danced more easily now, in a freer and more sprightly fashion, even though not so buoyantly and more self-consciously than with the other. Hermine had me lead, adapting herself as softly and lightly as the leaf of a flower, and with her, too, I now experienced all these delights that now advanced and now took wing. She, too, now exhaled the perfume of woman and love, and her dancing, too, sang with intimate tenderness the lovely and enchanting song of sex.”

“I manage to hold the poker face when she submits to dominance, to the summons, and swans into my arms, pressing her quivering form against mine when she embraces me.”

“Can there be anything more sad than a girl dying on the day of her first communion, in her new dress. A little bride of death...”