Never before had he set eyes on such a body, a body that said so much and yet was no more than itself.

Now, the fact that she didn’t eat meat, only vegetables and cereal grains, seemed to fit with the image of that blue petal-like mark, so much so that the one could not be disentangled from the other, and the fact that the blood that had gushed out of her artery had soaked his white shirt, drying into the dark, matte burgundy of red bean soup, felt

It was the quiet tone of a person who didn’t belong anywhere, someone who had passed into a border area between states of being.

He was worn out, and life revolted him. He couldn’t cope with all these things it contaminated.

She’s a good woman, he thought. The kind of woman whose goodness is oppressive.

Like a cough that tickles the throat, he could feel a long-suppressed yell threatening to burst out from deep inside him.

which made it seem as though she were a woman of bitter experience,

I went to have a shower, and by the time I returned to bed she was lying there with her eyes closed as if nothing had happened, or as though everything had somehow sorted itself out during the time I’d spent washing myself.

Pinning down her struggling arms and tugging off her trousers, I became unexpectedly aroused.