“We pulled up and looked at the hills, the mountains and the blue-green sea.

… Not only
wild but menacing. The hills would close in on you” (63).
“Standing on the veranda I breathed the sweetness I breathed the sweetness of the air.
Cloves I could smell and cinnamon, roses and orange blossom. And an intoxicating freshness as
if all this had been breathed before” (66).
“A great many moths and beetles found their way into the room, flew into the candles
and feel dead on the tablecloth.”
“She said this place London is like a cold dark dream sometimes” (73)
“that is precisely how your beautiful island seems to me, quite unreal and like a dream”
(73).
“I was waiting for the scent of the flowers by the river – they opened when darkness
came and it came quickly. Not night or darkness as I knew it but night with blazing stars, an
alien noon – night full of strange night. Still night, not day.”
“So this place is as lonely as it feels?”
“I love it more than anywhere in the world. As if it were a person. More than a person.”
“It was often raining when I woke during the night, a light capricious shower, dancing
playful rain, or hushed muted, growing louder, more persistent, more powerful, an inexorable
sound. But always music, a music I have never heard before.” (82).
“In sunlight, in shadow, by moonlight, by candle-light. In the long afternoons when the
house was empty. Only the sun was there to keep us company. We shut him out. And why
not?”
“Then I’d listen to the rain, a sleepy tune that seemed as if it would go on forever… Rain,
for ever raining. Drown me in sleep. And soon”
“I had reached the forest and you cannot mistake the forest. It is hostile.” (94)
“This was why I stubbed my fot on a stone and nearly fell. The stone I had tripped on
was not a boulder but part of a paved road through this forest.” (95)
about England (100)
“I sat on the veranda with my back to the sea and it was as if I had done it all my life. I
could not imagine different weather or a different sky.” (108)
 “There would be the sky and the mountains, the flowers and the girl and the feeling that
all this was a nightmare, the faint consoling hope that I might wake up” (108).
“I feel very much a stranger here.” (117)
“I feel that this place is my enemy and on your side” (117).
Antoinette: “We were alone in the most beautiful place in the world, it is not possible
that there can be anywhere else so beautiful as Coulibri. The sea was not far off but we never
heard it, we always heard the river.” (118).
“All the flowers in the world were in our garden and sometimes when I was thirsty I
licked raindrops from the Jasmine leaves after a shower. If I could make you see it” (119).
“The trees were threatening and the shadows of the trees moving slowly over the floor
menaced me” (135).
Antoinette + cloudy day vs. sun
“But the sadness I felt looking at the shabby white house – I wasn’t prepared for that.
More than ever before it strained away from the black snake-like forest. Louder and more
desperately it called: Save me from destruction, ruin and desolation. Save me from the long
slow death by ants.”
“I hated the mountains and the hills, the rivers and the rain. I hated the sunsets of
whatever color. I hated its beauty and its magic and the secret I would never know.”
“At the end of the path out of sight and sound of the house I stopped. The world was
given up to heat and to flies, the light was dazzling after his little dark room. A black and white
goat tethered nearby was staring at me and for what seemed minutes I stared back into its
slanting yellow-green eyes. Then I walked to the tree where I’d left my horse and rode away as
quickly as I could.” (114).