“when suddenly, as if a shelf were shot forth and she stood on it, she said how she was his wife, married years ago in Milan, his wife, and would never, never tell that he was mad”

“She thought about how marvelous is would be to have a wife keeping the house in order, the meals on the table. At the same time it seemed ridiculously unfair that she could never have a wife. In fact, if she married, she would be expected to be the wife.”

“She would- never mind. She was his servant. Slave mentality. This was not the girl I asked to marry me. She was his slave and believed she knew only joy...where was my wife? What was this creature she stroked and sucked at...”

“there was a soldier in the next room living with his wife and he would soon be going over there to protect me from Hitler so I snapped the radio off and then heard his wife say, "you shouldn't have done that." and the soldier said, "FUCK THAT GUY!" which I thought was a very nice thing for him to tell his wife to do. of course, she never did.”

“She remained silent. There was nothing left to say. He'd said it all the night before. He had to end it. He could never leave his wife. And, in fact, she had known this. Although she loved him - and truly she did - he wasn't hers. He belonged to his wife. She'd earned him. It didn't matter that he was her first love or that she was his passion. It didn't matter that they had loved one another for more than half their lives. It didn't matter that he had married his wife on the rebound. It didn't matter that he didn't love the woman. It didn't even matter that they had turned into some soap-opera cliche. He was married to someone else and that meant that she was leftovers and destined to remain on the periphery in the shadow of another woman's marriage. But no more. She was well and truly sick of it. ”

“How ironic that when they’d been married, she’d never thought of growing old with him.Yet now, years after the annulment, she should think of it with the yearning of an exile, forthe homeland that had long ago evicted her.”