Gabrielle Roy

"Florentine... Florentine Lacasse... half song, half squalor, half springtime, half misery,the young man murmured."

"..."Would you wait for me?" he asked suddenly, his voice husky and low. "it's not right, but would you wait? Would you you wait till the world is cured again? A year? Two years? Maybe longer! Could yo…"

"Azarius, for his part, had not made her voyage to the depths of pain to understand that death and birth, in that place, have almost the same tragic meaning."

"Florentine was now no more than a bright patch on the platform. He managed to see her take out her compact and wipe away the few traces of her tears. He closed his eyes and, as if he were already very…"

"That was when she recognized love: this torture on seeing someone, the greater torture when he was out of sight, in short, a torture without end."

"Don’t preach," said Florentine violently. She was beginning to see the maze of lies and deceptions that lay before her."

"Soon she saw the dining room light shining through the parted curtains. Its humble glow provoked a goodness in her heart that was no longer calculating or defiant, nor a kind of currency with which to…"

"It began to rain harder. The last snow was under attack by these heavy, wide-spaced drops. All that remained underfoot of months of frost and freezing was a light crust that crumbled as he walked. The…"