And Now Such A Warm

She Could Not Explain Or Quite Understand That It Wasn't Altogether Jealousy She Felt, It Was Rage. And Not Because She Couldn't Shop Like That Or Dress Like That. It Was Because That Was What Girls Were Supposed To Be Like. That Was What Men - People, Everybody - Thought They Should Be Like. Beautiful, Treasured, Spoiled, Selfish, Pea-brained. That Was What A Girl Should Be, To Be Fallen In Love With. Then She Would Become A Mother And She'd Be All Mushily Devoted To Her Babies. Not Selfish Anymore, But Just As Pea-brained. Forever.

Few People, Very Few, Have A Treasure, And If You Do You Must Hang Onto It. You Must Not Let Yourself Be Waylaid, And Have It Taken From You.

It’s Just Life. You Can’t Beat Life.

She Was Learning, Quite Late, What Many People Around Her Appeared To Have Known Since Childhood That Life Can Be Perfectly Satisfying Without Major Achievements.

It Was At This Time That She Entirely Gave Up On Reading. The Covers Of Books Looked Like Coffins To Her, Either Shabby Or Ornate, And What Was Inside Them Might As Well Have Been Dust.