“And there it is. Because if these were not failures of love, on your part or on mine, or failures of generosity, or at least of imagination or attention, well, of course, they were, and I didn’t want to know. And though I know my heart cannot have been broken in these things, these things of my house and of yours, no, it can’t have been, I’m sure it was not, I find that I am crying as I write, because, it cannot either, can it? have cost so much to say in some of these things, or in some others sometime, not grudgingly, and without reluctance, Yes.”

—Renata Adler