7
" Anyone who realises what Love is, the dedication of the heart, so profound, so absorbing, so mysterious, so imperative, and always just in the noblest natures so strong, cannot fail to see how difficult, how tragic even, must often be the fate of those whose deepest feelings are destined from the earliest days to be a riddle and a stumbling-block, unexplained to themselves, passed over in silence by others. "
― Edward Carpenter , The Intermediate Sex: A Study Of Some Transitional Types Of Men And Women
10
" So what is it you're going to show me today?" " A number of things. In fact, what I'm going to show you is part of a story. Didn't you tell me the other day that what you like to do is read?" Bea nodded, arching her eyebrows." Well, this is a story about books." " About books?" " About accursed books, about the man who wrote them, about a character who broke out of the pages of a novel so that he could burn it, about a betrayal and a lost friendship. It's a story of love, of hatred, and of the dreams that live in the shadow of the wind." " You sound like the jacket blurb of a Victorian novel, Daniel." " That's probably because I work in a bookshop and I've seen too many. But this is a true story. As real as the fact that this bread they served us is at least three days old. And, like all true stories, it begins and ends in a cemetery, although not the sort of cemetery you imagine." She smiled the way children smile when they've been promised a riddle or a magic trick." I'm all ears. "
