“With a little effort, she could get up by herself.”

“She remembered lying in the crevasse, buried by snow. She thought of that perfect silence. Also now, like then, no one knew where she was. This time too, no one would come. But she no longer expected them to. She smiled at the clear sky. With a little effort, she could get up by herself.”

“She emptied herself of Fabio and of herself, of all the useless efforts she had made to get where she was and find nothing there. With detached curiosity she observed the rebirth of her weaknesses, her obsessions. This time she would let them decide, since she hadn't been able to do anything anyway. Against certain parts of yourself you remain powerless, she said to herself, as she regressed pleasurably to the time when she was a girl.”

“That evening, getting up from the table, she had crossed the invisible boundary beyond which things start working by themselves.”

“She found herself thinking of how it would feel to be safely trapped in his arms, with no more possibility to choose.”

“She tried to open the bottle, but the top slipped through her fingers without moving.He took the bottle from her hand and opened it using only his thumb and index finger. Alice thought there was nothing special in the gesture, that she could have done it herself, like anyone else, if only her hands hadn't been so sweaty. And yet she found it strangely fascinating, like a small heroic feat performed specially for her.”

“She couldn't remember what they had talked about, only that she had looked at her rapt from a place just behind her eyes, a place full of jumbled thoughts that she had kept to herself even then.”