Falling in love, for instance. “We fell in love with the house,” friends of his say. How can you fall in love with a house when the house cannot love you back, he wants to reply? Once you start falling in love with objects, what will be left of real love, love as it used to be? But no one seems t...
In a matter of hours he has ploughed the whole of his land. All very swift and businesslike; all very unlike Africa. In olden times, that is to say ten years ago, it would have taken him days with a hand-plough and oxen. Against this new Petrus what chance does Lucy stand? Petrus arrived...
As instructed, they pass by the main entrance and make for a narrow doorway on a side street over which there is a sign in florid gold characters—Academia de la Danza—and an arrow pointing to a stairway. They ascend to the second floor, pass through swing doors, and find themselves in a large, we...
There is nothing to keep him in Petersburg. The train leaves at eight o’clock; by Tuesday he can be with his wife and child in Dresden. But as the hour approaches it becomes more and more inconceivable that he will remove the pictures from the shrine, blow out the candle, and give up Pavel’s room...
Just as noon is striking, the boy comes rushing upstairs in a state of great excitement. ‘They are here, they are here!’ he shouts. ‘Who is here?’ ‘The lady from the Residencia! The lady who is going to be my mother! She came in a car.’ The lady, who arrives at the door wearing a rather formal da...
But he does not. On Sunday morning he drives to the empty campus and lets himself into the department office. From the filing cabinet he extracts Melanie Isaacs’s enrolment card and copies down her personal details: home address, Cape Town address, telephone number. He dials the number. A woman’s...