She had a proprietary way of admiring other people’s possessions, as if all good taste were in some measure a tribute to herself.

That was the trouble with experience; it taught you that most people were capable of anything, so that loyalty was never quite on firm ground—or, rather, became a matter of pardoning offenses instead of denying their existence.

Through the slit that now parted the shutters, the old man stared despondently at the day. The scene, it was true, was of dimensions comparable to those of his own land—in fact, he had made the comparison all too frequently, as though Tuscany were remarkable only for this similarity—but then there was that sky. He had never experienced such a sky.

One can’t ask to be left alone, she thought, or not to be touched, even once in a great while, without creating a scene—without changing everything.

They were sitting, this evening, on either side of Charles Holmes, who was an Englishman, and who, from shyness, talked and listened with a habitual vagueness, glancing at Dora, his wife, sitting opposite.

This admission seemed to her to set the seal on the dissolution of their love: total indebtedness could only be acknowledged where no attempt at repayment was contemplated.

She thought that the digressions in the minds of men were endless. How many disguises were assumed before they could face themselves. How many justifications made in order that they might simply please themselves. How dangerous they were in their self-righteousness—infinitely more dangerous than women, who could never persuade themselves to the

That was the trouble with experience; it taught you that most people were capable of anything, so that loyalty was never quite on firm ground—or, rather, became a matter of pardoning offenses instead of denying their existence.

This admission seemed to her to set the seal on the dissolution of their love: total indebtedness could only be acknowledged where no attempt at repayment was contemplated.