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He understood desire. But desire was not passion and passion was not love. He might give himself to desire while keeping the vault of his passion and his love for Valérie intact. She was like a saint he venerated at her altar. There’d never been any space for another. But now he felt as though a thief had stolen into the vault, desecrating all the noble romantic dreams he’d built.
Dear Hector, I find it hard to put my thoughts into sentences, but I must do it or I think I will go mad. Hector, I love you. I count the hours when I cannot see you and treasure every word you speak to me. I thought myself happy to simply bask in your presence, but when we embraced I knew the true extent of joy. I want nothing more than to be in your arms again and to kiss you. If what we did was improper, then I confess myself a wretched and foul creature, because I want nothing more than to touch you again. Should you want me only for one hour or one day, I would gladly take it. I would
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I had never seen anyone that lovely, of noble family, with fine manners. I imagined her a princess and ours a fairy tale. I’d spent my youth in the gutter and suddenly there was a chance for enchantment.”
Like the moon in the sky, I can already feel you magnetized by my orbit.”
I don’t think you’ll ever cease to be beautiful, and you’ll continue to drive men crazy with your beauty. But there is no goodness in you, just poison, and a desire to wound,”
“Do you think you can put your heart in a box of iron and throw away the key? Do you think that is the best way to live? Keep your damn heart in a box and let nothing touch it!” she exclaimed. Ready to depart, now that she had said her piece, she whirled away from him. Her chest burned with ardent sorrow, but at least she was glad she was not weeping. “No, I do not think it is possible, because you are in there already!”
“All we ultimately have to do is believe. We focus our mind on one single point, one single purpose, and we push. We grasp. We manipulate wood and glass and iron. However, the greatest trick is the belief. Belief is what makes it real.
“Nothing matters more than money to us, the Beautiful Ones who walk down these city streets in pristine gloves and silk-lined garments. You can give yourself the luxury of love because you are not one of us. That is why you are my friend: because despite everything, at heart you remain an innocent.”
he had also been drifting toward her since the beginning, magnetized, a compass that had spun wildly and then gently settled upon a true north. Not love at first sight, because those fancies were best left for books and songs, but she had extended her hand and invited him to follow her into a dance, and he had found after a few steps that though he had never danced it before, he did not want to stop.
He knew that in the years to come, even when they were old and gray and their spines were bent by the weight of time, he would remember her as she was in that moment, with a couple of stray yellow flowers in her hair, her lips parted. He stood still, holding the moment against his heart. Then she turned her head and smiled at him.
