The Invitation

nature, who knows nothing of convention, has the audacity of a genius.

That spring was the start of everything, for me. Before then, I might have been half-asleep, drifting through life.

I think, in art, it is as noble a thing as to to try to make people happy, to help them escape, as it is to make them think. And perhaps more difficult.

You know, my friend, I have found that the best way to come to terms with one’s past is like this, through talk. It is painful, but, little by little, it helps to diffuse its power.

Things happen. And they happen whether or not we’re there to influence them. And we can either let them eat away at us, and destroy us. Or we can go on living. Sometimes that is braver.

The air is impressively warm and close, as thick as honey.

With the candles on the table, the space becomes a luminous cocoon

Now the city is at its loveliest. The crowds of summer and autumn have gone, the air has a new freshness, the light has that pale-gold quality unique to this time of year. There have been several weeks of this weather now, without a drop of rain.

He would like to talk to her again, to see her once more. But no doubt the peculiar magic of it had been due to them being strangers.

But he showed me how to be free. In a way, I wish that I could have learned it on my own – but sometimes we need another to show us our own bravery.