“…"Would you wait for me?" he asked suddenly, his voice husky and low. "it's not right, but would you wait? Would you you wait till the world is cured again? A year? Two years? Maybe longer! Could you give me all that time, Florentine?" She pulled back from him, wary of his words. What did he mean? "Till the world cured…" What kind of talk was that? She was fearful of what she didn't understand, but felt at that moment she felt their destinies in her hand…”

“She fell, she hurt, she felt. She lived. And for all the tumble of her experiences, she still had hope. Maybe this next time would do the trick. Or maybe not. But unless you stepped into the game, you would never know.”

“She told me once that the year she went to England she painted her buttons yellow so she would remember what the sun felt like.”

“She rested her head against his and felt, for the first time, what she would often feel with him: a self-affection. He made her like herself.”

“She came from the shower wrapped in a towel and she sat on the bed and took his hand and looked down at him. I cannot do what you ask, she said. I love you. But I cannot. He saw very clearly how all his life led only to this moment and all after led nowhere at all. He felt something cold and soulless enter him like another being and he imagined that it smiled malignly and he had no reason to believe that it would ever leave.”

“She said out of pity for him, "I shall give you a kiss if you like," but though he once knew, he had long forgotten what kisses are, and he replied, "Thank you," and held out his hand, thinking she had offered to put something into it. This was a great shock to her, but she felt she could not explain without shaming him, so with charming delicacy she gave Peter a thimble which happened to be in her pocket, and pretended that it was a kiss.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” V waved his hand-rolled around. “I’m the son of a deity and she picked you?”

“Alexander smoked and watched her from his tree stump bench. What are you doing? she would ask him.

Nothing, he would reply. Nothing but growing my pain into madness.”

“But Florentine was still riding the crest of her great wave…When it lifted her high she had to hold her breath. How could she ever again be bothered by these petty everyday cares? Would she ever again feel the old anxiety on hearing these dreadful midnight confidences, in the silence heavy with breathing? The wave that bore her was like a long, slow swell. There were hollows into which she sank with all her thoughts, all her willpower, where she was no more than a wing, a feather, a fringe, borne off ever faster, ever faster…He kissed me on the cheeks. On the eyes! "What's going to happen to us, Florentine? If your father's gone and lost his job again, we'll have to live on what you can give us, poor Florentine. We can always go back on relief…”

“Do you ask why Mary Magdalene was the one chosen to whom first of all Christ should show Himself after the resurrection? This we know — she trusted in Him, and she loved Him; she waited at His sepulchre; she sought, she looked, she wept; and if we would have Christ reveal Himself to us, we, too, must seek and wait and long and trust and love.”