Quartet - Jean Rhys

Stephan disliked being questioned and, when closely pressed, he lied.  He just lied.  Not plausibly or craftily, but impatiently and absent-mindedly.  So Marya had long ago stopped questioning.  For she was reckless, lazy, a vagabond by nature, and for the first time in her life she was very near to being happy.

He never explained his doings.  He was a secretive person, she considered.  Sometimes, without warning or explanation, he would go away for two or three days, and, left alone in the hotel, she dreaded, not desertion, but some vague, dimly-apprehended catastrophe.  But nothing happened.  It was a fantastic life, but it kept on its legs so to speak.  There was no catastrophe.  And eventually Marya stopped questioning and was happy.

*
From the balcony Marya could see one side of the Place Blanche.  Opposite, the Rue Lepic mounted upwards to the rustic heights of Montmartre.  It was astonishing how significant, coherent and understandable it all became after a glass of wine on an empty stomach.

The lights winking up at a pallid moon, the slender painted ladies, the wings of the Moulin Rouge, the smell of petrol and perfume and cooking.

The Place Blanche, Paris.  Life itself.  One realized all sorts of things.  The value of an illusion, for instance, and that the shadow can be more important than the substance.  All sorts of things.

Strings Too Short to Use - Lorrie Moore

It's not that I wanted to be married.  It's that I wanted a Marriage Equivalent, although I never knew exactly what that was, and often suspected that there was really no such thing.  Yet I was convinced there had to be something better than the lonely farce living across town or hall could, with very little time, become.

"We need them for their phillips-head screwdrivers," I said.

Eleanor raised her eyebrows.  "That's right," she said, "I keep forgetting you only go out with circumcised men."

And then the nurse-practitioner told me that if I had a child it might straighten out my internal machinery a bit.  Prevent "Career Women's Diseases."  Lumps often disappear during pregnancy.  "Can I extend my prescription on the sedatives?"  I asked.  With each menstrual cycle, she went on to explain, the body is like a battered boxer, staggering back from its corner into the ring, and as the years go by, the body does this with increasing difficulty.  Its will gets broken.  It screws up.  A woman's body is so busy preparing to make babies that every year that goes by without one is another year of rejection that is harder and harder for it to recover from.  Soon it could go completely crazy.

When I went out to see him at gigs, I would come in and sit alone at a table way in the back.  I felt like a stray groupie, a devoted next-door neighbor.  He would come talk to me on his breaks, but he talked to almost everybody who was there.  Everyone got equal time, equal access.  He was public.  He was no longer mine.  I felt foolish and phobic.  I felt spermicidal.  I drank and smoked too much.  I started staying home. 

"You can't really be a fallen Protestant," she said.  "How can there be any guilt?"

"There can be guilt," I said.  "It's my piety, I can cry if I want to."

"But being a fallen Catholic - that's skydiving!  Being a fallen Protestant - that's like mugging an old lady, so easy why bother."

I missed him.  Love, I realized, was something your spine memorized.  There was nothing you could do about that. 

普通的男子

他實在是個很普通的男子，滿足不了你在那些電影裡培養的錯誤想像。別人介紹給他，他就去，別人點頭禮貌，他就禮貌，別人對他笑，他就笑。他帶她去見他的朋友，你認識的那些，他們都笑。反正多年來都一直是這樣。你、別人、你、別人。最後也並不是他不想，先保持緘默的是對方。

噢你是不同的，當然，但除了不同也可以有很多類同的。

那麼為何再見？

因為......

其實也沒有甚麼因為。因為我一直無處可去，一直都是這樣。

《血卡門》黃碧雲

心中有金蘋果多麼難。

有時候太慢，有時候又太快。蘿達是個沒有耐性的女子，但她一直在等。
短短的生命裡，甚麼事情都沒有發生。沒有愛也沒有死。
“到底有還是沒有，到底可以不可以？”那真是極為嚴峻的問題。

不能說失望，蘿達是個明白事理的女子。生命從來沒有答應過甚麼。

“即使你仍然靜默並且遠離，我時常心存喜悅親近。我只是怕你會愛我。”

如櫻桃之六月，如烈日之靜。

“也說不清楚是甚麼。可能討厭美國人動輒說‘我愛你’。請她吃一杯雪糕又說我愛你，放幾天假之前說再見又要加句‘我愛你’。“
“或許只是討厭比提，時常要討論愛情是甚麼，你懂得愛嗎你會付出嗎。我沒甚麼好討論。我只想安靜的吃東西看電視。”

安東尼奧居然在更衣室門外等她。很冷她已經穿了大衣預備回家。她戴上了手套問，“有事？”他說沒甚麼，有沒有空到酒吧喝一杯酒。嘉蜜美拉搖搖頭說，下個星期就表演了，表演前我不喝酒，也想早點睡。安東尼靠近她，臉壓在她面前，問，“你不愛我了？”嘉蜜美拉穿著大衣戴著手套覺得全身都好熱，就微微推開安東尼奧說，“不存在愛或不愛的問題。已經無關重要了。”安東尼奧突然扯開她的大衣扯下她的手套吻她。手套跌在地上他還沒有換鞋子，舞鞋硬硬的踏著她的淡紫小羊皮手套。她沒有反抗，他吻過她無數次，曾經令她臉紅心跳也令她心痛如裂，現在他吻她一如一個平淡無味的中學生。她沒有甚麼感覺，可以忍受也不至於厭惡。讓他吻完了她抹了抹嘴，低下身來拾起她的手套，有一點痛心手套已經髒了，那是她上一次到義大利表演在米蘭買的。“明天見。”她說。“早點睡。下星期的第一晚表演國王會來看，你知道的呵？”再穿上大衣。推開舞團的大門原來外面下著雪。

流落到街上去找生活；足以讓我明白，這個世界並不需要我。我存活在這個世界，是一個多餘的人。
這個世界對我來說亦是多餘的。
我們在相互的多餘之中活著。因此我很大，大如影子，世界也很大，走來走去都走不到盡頭。