"These are notes to photographs of Autun. It would be better to say they began as notes but became something else, a description of what I conceive to be events. They were meant for me alone, but I no longer hide them. Those times are past." (11)

"His wife is a lynx. Even from across the room she imposes her assurance, her slow smiles. She's a friend of Cristina's. I know her from afternoons on the boulevard. I see her leaving cafes. She favors knit suits, her breasts moving softly within them, but I don't think she meets men." (17)

"Finally we emerge at the roaring, iron galleries where meat is handled. It's like coming upon a factory in the darkness. The overhead lights are blazing. The smell of carnage is everywhere, the very metal reeks with an odor denser than flowers. On the sidewalk there are wheelbarrows of slaughtered...