" Her entire vocabulary had become Francois's and Odile now spouted this man's repertoire -- the repertoire that had caused me to tell Helene de Thianges that his conversation was just a star turn. She talked about the "intensity of life", the joy of conquest, and even Indochina. But filtered through Odile's veiled mind, Francois's hard-edged themes lost their sharp contours. I could follow them quite clearly through her but could see they were distorted, like a river crossing a wide lake and losing the rigid framework of its banks, reduced to an indistinct shadow eaten into by encroaching waves. "

― André Maurois , Climats