Eva Luna

by Isabel Allende

She walked with defiant grace, head high, to the rhythm of the secret music she carried inside.

He had no taste for soldiering; it seemed stupid to him to be killed for a flag that in his estimation was nothing more than a piece of cloth tied to a pole.

He prided himself on his coldness and pragmatism, two qualities he considered particularly manly, but in truth he was an incorrigible dreamer.

He was disarmed by the slightest gesture of sympathy and outraged by injustice, and he suffered the ingenuous idealism of youth that never withstands confrontation with reality.

He denied his emotions, but at any unguarded moment was demolished by them.

When she was alone with her son, she tried to find out what his true feelings were, but Melesio’s only explanation was that there was a woman inside him and she could not get used to the male body in which she was trapped as surely as if she were in a straitjacket.

Occasionally I thought I glimpsed the truth, but soon found myself once again lost in a forest of ambiguities.

what is not voiced scarcely exists;

Solitude and violence had driven steel splinters deep into his heart, and had robbed him of the ability to love himself.