"But, even at the time, I could not tell whether these pictures were implanted in my mind by Adela's tales or whether I had witnessed them myself"(75).

"Only now do I understand the lonely hero who alone had waged war against the fathomless, elemental boredom that strangled the city" (25).

"It seemed that in her paroxysm of fury she might disintegrate into separate gestures, that she would divide into a hundred spiders, would spread out over the floor in a black, shimmering net of crazy running cockroaches" (81).

"Reality is as thin as paper and betrays with all its cracks its imitative character" (67).

"Adela rose from her chair and asked us to avert our eyes from what was to follow. Then she went up to Father and, with her hands on her hips in a pose of great determination, she spoke very clearly" (36).

Adela, leaning against the balcony rails, bent...