lily of the valley

“It was Enzo. Seeing him didn’t disappoint her. She thought he had come to bring her some fruit—as he had done many years earlier, as a child, after he was defeated in the competition created by the principal and Maestra Oliviero, and had thrown a stone at her—and she burst out laughing. Enzo considered the laughter a sign of illness. He went in, but left the door open out of respect, he didn’t want the neighbors to think she was receiving men like a prostitute. He looked around, he glanced at her disheveled state, and although he didn’t see what still didn’t show, that is, the pregnancy, he deduced that she really needed help.”

“Joan exists. She changes form but not in substance from one century to another to suit the needs of her readers, appearing as a witch in one, and saint in another.” Representing Joan of Arc, Susan Visvanathan

“Ah, Lila the shoemaker, Lila who imitated Kennedy’s wife, Lila the artist and designer, Lila the worker, Lila the programmer, Lila always in the same place and always out of place.” Story of the Lost Child, Elena Ferrante