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'The Courage of Women', by Anna Banti

'If only she could grow heavy with sleep; her body tingles with warning terror, for the raising of the covers on the left side, the presence of the other body on the common bed. A slight motion, an extended hand would be enough for the very fragile safety to collapse and the smooth grain of the sheet to host a violent blow.'

Some beautiful pieces here. Favourites so far are Dacia and the Ginsberg story

It’s a relationship of smiles and murmurs. It’s a relationship that seems calm, but inwardly it is shaken by continual shocks.

This might be my favourite lines in the entire book.

"And after a long pause, he continued breezily, “In town, my dear, in the evening, hundreds and hundreds of lights go on all by themselves as though by a miracle, and at night it’s as bright as by day. Down there people don’t trudge along as we do up here in the midst of snow stones and crags, but they walk on streets smooth as velvet, and, if it rains, they take shelter beneath the porticoes."

I see it now. This story's about them--Guerinno and Mariutine. The thing is that the beginning felt far too detached, or maybe I'm used to characters whose head I'm inside from the beginning.

"It was an evening in early June, warm already and scented. Night of love and memories!"

"He was thinking that in his youth he had been handsome and good and yet he had got nothing, not love, or wealth, or even pleasure. True, he had not hunted for them; perhaps he had been waiting for them to offer themselves spontaneously; and as he had waited and waited, time had passed into futility."

Deep. Or in other words. If you want something. Get off your butt and go after it! Really enjoying this by the way.

"People who are well off don’t have to make a show of it.”

"“Lead is good for birds; for certain people it takes a knife.”"

"With a heat burning under his skin, his blood-shot eyes see everything as unjust, polluted, hostile: his harvest poor, his house in shambles, his children badly brought up and that wife – that wife with cat eyes."

Subtle switching of POV. You might not even notice if you weren't looking.