Sogni d'oro ...because there is no way for paragraph spaces, only line breaks

"She lay in the dark and thought of the paper she'd crumpled and thrown. It was lesson number seven. An elderly man in the Russian colony sent her pages in the mail to improve her English. At the top of the first page he wrote in large, large letters, in Russian, My name is Marina. She was supposed to write the English words below. Lesson number two, I live in Fort Worth. Lesson number three, We buy groceries on Tuesday. Each lesson had its own page. She mailed him the finished pages and he corrected them and mailed them back, with new lessons for her to work on. Now lesson seven was crumpled and he would wonder how it happened.

Lee came out of the bathroom and got into bed. She felt how he carefully eased into bed so he wouldn't disturb her if she was asleep. She was facing away from him, of course.
...
She thought of walking the aisles of Montgomery Ward. She went in out of the heart to piped-in music and little ringing bells. The floors were polished. The aisles were immensely long, bordered with cosmetics in display cases and counters full of shiny handbags, with dresses spreading into other rooms. Fragrances drifting everywhere.

He wanted to go to college at night and take courses in politics and economics. But there was the need to make a living which interfered.

She saw him from a distance even when he was hitting her. He was never fully there.

Mamochka bought her modest shorts, pleated, with deep pockets. This was a difference of opinion.She knew he was trying to sense if she was awake. He was on the verge of saying something or leaning over to touch. He would would probably touch, rise on an elbow and touch her on the hip with his hand curled soft. She felt his desire like an airstream in the dark. It was absolutely there. He was waiting, thinking if this was the the time. His own wife and he had to think.

She thought of Holland again.

She thought of landing in New York. One night in a hotel in the middle of cascading neon. Rivers and lakes of neon.

He is someone you see from a distance" (240-241).

"Frederica thinks: Do I want this, do I want this? John Ottokar touches her face, her hair, her long haunches, her small breasts. He touches lightly, lightly, so that her skin begins to desire, half-irritated, half-compelled, to be touched more violently. She puts her own hands on his shoulders. He kisses her face, again, and his fingers question her clothes, a button, a zip, a strap, so that insides these the naked woman is defined and comes to life. And her minds does not cease: Do I want this, do I want this? She stares out of the basement window at the cone of light falling from the street lamp, frowning slightly, lips nevertheless parted with mindless pleasure, and thinks: Do I want this? She remembers her own young greed, and her need to know--about her body, her sex, about male bodies--her indiscriminate clutchings and searchings and muddles and laughter and disgust. She is afraid now, as she was not, then. Her body is used, not furiously ready. She remembers her childish attempts to attract Alexander's attention and make him want her. She thinks of them as childish now, she thinks of herself as old, on the edge of being undesirable. She thinks that she wanted Alexander because he was remote, the teacher, her father's friend, tabu. And now, she thinks, there is the same thrill. I am the teacher, I am wanted because I am separate and looked at, there is a boundary of the forbidden to cross" (346-347).

" 'You were created to be a blind, squatting beggar.'

'The man seemed pleased. 'That is because of the bounty of our Lord.'

Zaita shook his head and replied, 'The operation is difficult and dangerous. Let me ask what you would do if the worst happened. Suppose you were really to lose your sight because of an accident or carelessness?'

The man hesitated, then replied unconcernedly, 'It would be a blessing from God! Have I ever gained anything by my sight that I should be sorry to lose it?'

Zaita was pleased and commented, 'With a heart like yours you can really face up to the world.'

'With God's permission, sir. I will be eternally grateful to you. I will give you half what the good people give me.'

Zaita shot a penetrating look at him and then said harshly, 'I am not interested in talk like that. I want only two milliemes a day, besides the fee for the operation. I know, by the way, how to get my rights if you are thinking of getting away without paying'" (60-61).

X : Was There a Horse with Wings?

"The black book lies on my father's desk, thick and important. Its covers are a little bent; the weight of his fingers and mine have curled back its pages, but they are not yellow. The handwriting is bold--in places it is even proud as when he has inscribed such names as these: 'Little Miller--Ormulu--Véronique.' They are all Thoroughbred mares out of stock old as boulders on an English hill.

The name 'Coquette' is inscribed more soberly, with no flourish--almost with doubt. It is as if here is girl, pretty as any, but brought by marriage into a family of respectability beyond her birth or farthest hopes.

The brief career of Coquette is, in fact, ever so slightly chequered; her background, while not obscure, suggests something less than the dazzling gentility of her stable-mates. Still, not to be English is hardly regarded as a fatal deficiency even by the English, though grave enough to warrant sympathy. Coquette is Abyssinian. She is small and golden yellow with a pure white mane and tail.

Coquette was smuggled out of Abyssinia because Abyssinians do not permit good native mares to leave their country. I do not remember who did the smuggling, but I suppose my father condoned it, in effect, when he bought her. He must have done it with one eye shut and the other on the sweet, tidy lines of her vigorous body" (117).