The Fraud

by Zadie Smith

It was no doubt a mark of bad character but she did not like the countryside. She lived in it but she did not like it. Edinburgh was in her bones. Cities were in her bones.

But she knew she lived in an age of things, no matter how out of step she felt in it, and whatever else he was, Charles had been the poet of things. He had made animate and human the cold traffic and bitter worship of things.

How easy he was to love when he was happy! How easy everyone is to love in that state.

England was an elaborate alibi. Nothing real happened in England. Only dinner parties and boarding schools and bankruptcies.