Giovanni's Room (Penguin Modern Classics)

He hesitated a moment and then grinned, suddenly looking rather boyish and shy. ‘It’s cold in the winter,’ he said. ‘I don’t like that. And Parisians—I do not find them so very friendly, do you?’ He did not wait for my answer. ‘They are not like the people I knew when I was younger. In Italy we are friendly, we dance and sing and make love—but thes

‘Look,’ said Giovanni, as we crossed the river. ‘This old whore, Paris, as she turns in bed, is very moving.’

He pulled me against him, putting himself into my arms as though he were giving me himself to carry, and slowly pulled me down with him to that bed. With everything in me screaming No! yet the sum of me sighed Yes.