Status Updates From Family and Friends

With fine vintages as their currency, Evie & Frederick obtained enough food to libe on & were content with simple fare - sardines & cheese & olives & bread & fruit which kept them healthy & bright-eyed in appearance.

- that literary fish, the sardine, appears again

For passionate souls, it has neen truly remarked, do not find friendship easy.

-i wonder if this is refering to Goethe's Werther, if so I will have to rethink this book...

In the sharp air of that late November it is Betty's delight to steal out in the early morning, buy the warm bread, & then steal back to bed, also warm, & lie there like a cat, dozing & stretching, until about eleven o'clock. Then it is time for her bath...

Alfred senses about Betty, when she passes him, a sharpish odour, the acid sweat of a true redhead, which makes him grit his teeth.

- I don't recall Brooknwr havibg anything to say about bodily smells before, perhaps for the beat as she seems to have had strong feelings!

Frank Cariani is a throwback to some Sardinian shepherd...he is dark, lithe, dangerously handsome; he is in addition both sulky & shy. In his white shirt, black trousers & black pumps, he looks like a wild creature whose nakedness is struggling to dominate his unaccustomed trappings. He is in fact quite a good fellow, quite decent, but his father senses on him an animal quality...

Finished reading; RTC.

"In the scented night [they] take their late walk, arm in arm, sometimes hand in hand."

"It is only by practising the strictest discipline on herself that she manages to think well of everyone else. It is in order to avoid heartbreak that Mimi wills herself into accepting everything at face value. Thus Sofka is to her a mother whose love has never wavered, Alfred the brother whose noble self-sacrifice for his family has never been less than voluntary, Frederick a joy, and Betty an amusement."

"From her bedroom Mimi can hear their laughter : Dolly's and Alfred's. She can also hear the silence of Hal, and Sofka."

Brookner: "It has made her (...) unable to try again."
Ebba: Please, Mimi, try again!

"Oblivious to the indigo sky and the little twisted trees, Alfred strides on. In what glade, in what grove, can Alfred find peace?"

"Her beauty is still visible to those who never knew her earlier."

"His years of unimpeded hard work have put a great deal of money into the bank but brought no joy to him."

"[She] does something entirely out of character. She falls in love with him."

"He appreciates a show of good manners, even if the good manners are not there."

"Betty is so violently single-minded that she will flirt with herself if there is nobody else."

"Betty makes up her flawless young face with the expertise and the severity usually reserved for the middle-aged."