Intermezzo

by Sally Rooney

Is this how it feels, he thinks, to get what you want? To desire, and at the same time to have, still desiring, but fulfilled.

And for this he feels a tender wounding gratitude, a sense of blessing, that he exists simply in this body, in this mind, that he is himself, this one person, rich in priceless resources which to his conscious mind remain almost infinitely unknown.