There was no back home any more, not in the essential way, and that was part of Paris too. Why we couldn't stop drinking or talking or kissing the wrong people no matter what it ruined. Some of us had looked into the faces of the dead and tried not to remember anything in particular. Ernest was one of these. He often said he'd died in the war, just for a moment; that his soul had left his body like a silk handkerchief, slipping out and levitating over his chest. It had returned without being called back, and I often wondered if writing for him was a way of knowing his soul was there after all, back in its place. Of saying to himself, if not to anyone else, that he had seen what he'd seen and felt those terrible things and lived anyway. That he had died but wasn't dead any more.
Paula McLainAre you always this wise, Ruth?"
"Only when it comes to other people's lives.
Tags: wisdom
Happiness is so awfully complicated, but freedom isn't. You're either tied down or you're not.
Paula McLainNot everyone out in a storm wants to be saved
Paula McLainMore and more I find myself at a loss for words and didn't want to hear other people talking either. Their conversations seemed false and empty. I preferred to look at the sea, which said nothing and never made you feel alone.
Paula McLainHe wanted them both, but there was no having everything, and love couldn't help him now. Nothing could help him but bravery, and what was that anyhow?
Paula McLainHe didn't know how love managed to be a garden one moment and war the next. He was at war now, his loyalty tested at every turn.
Paula McLainIt was the end of Ernest's struggle with apprenticeship, and an end to other things as well. He would never again be unknown. We would never again be this unhappy.
Paula McLainErnest once told me that the word paradise was a Persian words that meant walled garden. I knew then that he understood how necessary the promises we made to each other were to our happiness. You couldn't have real freedom unless you knew were the walls were and tended to them. We could lean on the walls because they existed; they existed because we leaned on them.
Paula McLainGetting married had been all his idea, but he hadn't told her how very afraid of it he was. He seemed to need to force his way through it anyway, as he did with everything that scared him terribly. He was afraid of marriage and he was afraid of being alone, too.
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