Giovanni's Room

I simply wondered about the dead because their days had ended and I did not know how I would get through mine.

“Hella. Hella. One day, when you’re happy, try to forgive me.”

But that would not be comfort anymore, only torture, for both of us.

Much has been written of love turning to hatred, of the heart growing cold with the death of love.

The need to act was like a fever in me, the only act possible was the act of love.

But it seemed to me that morning that my ancient self had been dreaming the most dangerous dream of all.

“You may laugh,” she said, humorously, “but there is something in what I say. I began to realize it in Spain—that I wasn’t free, that I couldn’t be free until I was attached—no, committed—to someone.”

“For a woman,” she said, “I think a man is always a stranger. And there’s something awful about being at the mercy of a stranger.”

She fitted in my arms, she always had, and the shock of holding her caused me to feel that my arms had been empty since she had been away.

You don’t have a home until you leave it and then, when you have left it, you never can go back.”