“She was on the far side, leaving two cold feet of mattress between them. He knew that she'd fall asleep like that... and then gradually move over until she was plastered against him. Then he could go to sleep, too.”

“In the talcum on the floor around him he could see the imprints of his mother's feet. She had moved from side to side, propelled by an over-eager partner, perhaps one of the Japanese officers to whom she was teaching to tango. Jim tried out the dance steps himself, which seemed far more violent than any tango he had ever seen, and managed to fall and cut his hand on the broken mirror.”

“The pull toward him came from her center. Her eyes never left his face as she moved to her hands and knees. She crawled slowly over the blanket, the breakfast, his legs, until her hands rested on either side of his hips. His smile lifted only on one side. He took care to stay very still, but his mouth opened slightly as she approached. This close to Blake she could smell him. Fresh, sweet fall leaves and mint.”

“He seemed so terribly weak. She would have had more respect for him if he'd told her to go fuck herself.' I have to go to sleep' she'd scathe.Then she'd roll over, and so would he. They'd be lying there like two strangers who just happened to be sharing the same bed. It was in those moments she began to plot her escape.”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, it shows?”Before Jude could answer, Brenna was up, pacing, knocking the heels of her hands against the sides of her, moaning out curses. “I’ll have to move away, leave my family. I can go to the west counties. I have some people, on my mother’s side, in Galway. No, no, that’s not far enough. I’ll have to leave the country entirely. I’ll go to Chicago and stay with your granny until I get on me feet. She’ll take me in, won’t she?”

“Then he clambered into the boat. Oh, and the beauty of the subjection of his loins, white and dimly luminous as he climbed over the side of the boat, his back rounded and soft -ah this was too much for her, too final a vision. She knew it and it was fatal. The terrible hopelessness of fate, and of beauty, such beauty!He was not like a man to her, he was an incarnation, a great phase of life. She saw him press the water out of his face, and look at the bandage on his hand. And she knew it was all no good, and she would never go beyond him, he was the final approximation of life to her.”