Fiction must stick to facts, and the truer the facts the better the fiction — so we are told.

“Egli la contemplò; tremò; ebbe caldo; ebbe freddo; anelò di lanciarsi tra il so…”

“It's not catastrophes, murders, deaths, diseases, that age and kill us; it's th…”

“Time flaps on the mast--”

“and then he could not see her come into a room without a sense of the flowing o…”