The Bridge of San Luis Rey (Vintage Classics)

by Thornton Wilder

he wanted to be always near beautiful women, of whom he was always in the best and worst sense the worshiper. To be near them was as necessary to him as breathing. His reverence for beauty and charm was there for anyone to see and to laugh at, and the ladies of the theater and the court and the houses of pleasure loved his connoisseurship. They tormented him and insulted him and asked his advice and were singularly comforted by his absurd devotion. He suffered greatly their rages and their meannesses and their confiding tears; all he asked was to be accepted casually, to be trusted, to be allowed like a friendly and slightly foolish dog to come and go in their rooms and to write their letters for them. He was insatiably curious about their minds and their hearts. He never expected to be loved by them (borrowing for a moment another sense of that word);

These are not the traits the Mother Superior fearfully expected to appear in the twins and in all men