They sat down at the table and things immediately livened up. And what, when I came, had been faces devoid of meaning or substance and which consequently I had only regarded in terms of age and type, more or less as if they had been animals, a bestiary of forty-year-olds with all that that entailed – lifeless eyes, stiff lips, pendulous breasts and quivering paunches, wrinkles and folds – I now saw to be individuals, for I was related to them, the blood that was in their veins was in mine, and who they were suddenly became important.
