Night was a very different matter. It was dense, thicker than the very walls, and it was empty, so black, so immense that within it you could brush against appalling things and feel roaming and prowling around a strange, mysterious horror.

To avoid each other, their eyes had developed an amazing mobility with all the cunning of enemies fearful of meeting each other head on.

We breathe, sleep, drink, eat, work and then die! The end of life is death. What do you long for? Love? A few kisses and you will be powerless. Money? What for? To gratify your desires. Glory? What coems after it all? Death! Death alone is certain.

Of all the passions, the only one that seems respectable to me is the passion for food

I have coveted everything and taken pleasure in nothing

The only certainty is death.

And taking her friend’s hand, she put it on her breast, on that firm round covering of a woman’s heart which the male often finds so satisfying that he makes no attempt to find what lies beneath it.