Ilse’s Reviews > Berta Isla > Status Update

That night I genuinely didn’t know what to do, but I did, of course, stay with Tomas. You would need to have lost an awful lot before you’d be willing to renounce what you have. You curb your impetuous urges , your expectations , you accept the somewhat tarnished version of what you were hoping to achieve or thought you had achieved , and besides, there are disappointments and imperfections at all stages of life .

As all we know, imagination is often far wilder than reality, even if it lacks the latter's precision and terrible force, so you can always dismiss what it tells you and say to yourself: 'That might well not have happened, and since I have no idea what really happened, nor ever will, why torment myself with conjectures?’

Peace,alas,is only ever apparent and transitory,a pretense.War is the natural state of the world.Often it’s open warfare,but when it’s not,war is always there in latent or indirect form or is merely a war-in-waiting.There are large portions of humanity who are always trying to harm others,or to take something from them,and rancour and discord reign at all times, if not, then they’re in the wings, watching and waiting

Those were the days of the so-called sexual liberation,which was permeated by the idea that there was barely any difference between having sex with someone and having a cup of coffee with them,as they were equivalent activities, &as if neither should leave behind any trace or sense of unease.(Even if no memory remains,the event does at least leave a trace, perhaps only in our knowledge &awareness that it did occur)

When she believed that her husband was her husband, she felt less at ease and found it harder to get out of bed and begin the day, she felt a prisoner of what she had so long been waiting for and which had now happened and for which she no longer waited, because anyone who has grown used to waiting never entirely consents to that waiting coming to a close, it’s like having half the air you breathe snatched from you.