Pioveva la sua vita, davanti ai suoi occhi, spettacolo quieto.

... fu che quegli occhi non avevano un taglio orientale, e che erano puntati, con un'intensità sconcertante, su di lui: come se fin dall'inizio non avessero fatto altro, da sotto le palpebre.

Teneva gli occhi fissi sulla labbra di Hervé Joncour, come se fossero le ultime righe di una lettera d'addio.

lilla syster, snön är inneboende ängel

sådan bryter ut när man rör vid den, renar

med glitter längs ryggarna bor där, sådan

är dess kraft

Era come tenere tra la dita il nulla.

Det var som om himmelen hadde falt sammen og alt ble stille.

Deretter kom jamringen, eller tonen, eller sangen, eller hva man skulle kalle det. En høy, lys, syngende tone som ikke fantes noe annet sted enn midt inni et brennende hus.

En slags fullkommenhet. Som ikke førte noensteds hen. Som hodet mitt.

å gå fremover i mørket alt er rolig på utsiden av en kropp.

With writing, we have second chances.

Her belly lit up like a firefly's bulb––brighter than a hundred thousands virgins making love for the first time.

[...] alone in the magnitude of his grief when he understood that he would die before he could tell Brod how beautiful she was that day (which was worth more than a good brain), and that he was not her real father but wished with every blessing, every day and night of his life, that he was; before he could tell her of his dream of eternal life with her, of dying with her, or never dying.

She was a genius of sadness, immersing herself in it, separating its numerous strands, appreciating its subtle manners. She was a prism through which sadness could be divided into its infinite spectrum.

[...] using his body to remember his body

Suddenly Yankel was overcome with a fear of dying, stronger than he felt when his parents passed of natural causes, stronger than when his only brother was killed in the flour mill or when his children died, stronger even when he was a child and it first occurred to him that he must try to understand what it could mean not to be alive––to be not in darkness, not in unfeeling––to be not being, not to be.

But who among you were the first to notice the negative bird it left in the window? Who first saw the shadow that the bird left behind, the shadow that drew blood from any finger that dared to trace it, the shadow that was the better proof of the bird's existence than the bird ever was? Who was with me when I mourned the death of my son, when I excused myself to bury that bird with my own hands?

Her collarbones like wings that spread from the base of her throat to the ends of her shoulders. A bird held down by skin.

Swollen eyes opened. Wandered. Then focused through a film of blood on a beloved child. Estha imagined that something in him smiled. Not his mouth, but some other unhurt part of him. His elbow perhaps. Or shoulder.

Their work, abandoned by God and History, by Marx, by Man, by Woman and (in the hours to come) by Children, lay folded on the floor.

Silence hung in the air like secret loss.