The Beautiful Ones

A sea roared inside her and made demands, but she waded it, she bobbed up, took a breath, and opened her eyes to the cold winter morning. Then she rose because the day was there, the world was there, and she wanted to be part of it.

We say many things when we are young. Eventually, we grow wiser.

But even when she gave nothing, he was happy because she was everything.

I think she wanted nothing from me," Hector added, "nothing at all but to let her love me.

Now she was there, real and solid, and he wanted to die without her and wanted to live for her.

It was not effortlessly. It tore me apart, but the poison has bled out.

Do you remember what it was to be young?" She asked. "Every trouble would be solved by sundown, and every dawn you'd have a new chance to remake the world.

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.

Desire was not passion and passion was not love.

But there was a mysterious assertiveness in her eyes at times, which he enjoyed, and her hair was nice— it made him curious, he wished to touch it.

She imagined the diamond comb weighing the girl down, like an anchor, tying her to Luc.

You are beautiful, Valérie. 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,” he said without malice, as if he were explaining

I am not jealous. I am pointing out how silly it is for you to complain that I speak with one man when you speak to many women. Why is it men can do as they please?

She was a goddess at whose feet he worshipped, and to cease in his adoration of her would imply he had spent a decade following a false idol.

In her misery, she was able to find the beauty of spite and cling to it.

They'd warned her of men who took liberties with women...They had not warned her that sometimes she might want to have certain liberties taken.

He was chained to her, to this brilliant ideal of a perfect love.

I suppose that's what bothers me most about Gaetan's home : It's awfully quiet. You could hear a pin fall in the hallway. "A museum of a house.

It was as if she had willed a part of her soul into his body, concealed it there. The best part of her, the part that was young and happy. There it had remained, safe.

I think she wanted nothing from me, nothing at all but to let her love me.

They were both creatures of tempestuous seas and stormy nights

He’s not a bad man,” Hector said. “An underwhelming endorsement,” she said.

Loisail was as important as the air that she breathed. It was her city. She was in the society pages every other week, a constant fixture at the most lavish parties. The boulevards might as well have been named after her.

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.

She’d said her vows and danced at her wedding party, and never once did she let the satisfied mask she wore slip.

In Loisail, certain things were not said out loud. Secrets were written in the movement of a fan or the gestures with a glove. Innocent words hid the sharpness of knives. Now Agnes and Valérie were speaking in this code.

They’d sent Valérie out in the world to battle in their name, and like a conquering general, she would deliver them a new kingdom.

While her mother was expecting only a suitable match, Nina was hoping for the romance of a lifetime followed by the grandest wedding imaginable.

I apologize. This is only the second dance I’ve attended, and I can see it will end catastrophically already.

It was his covetous heart, which now had focused on Antonina and aimed to consume her.