The Gioconda Smile and Other Stories

'The greatest pleasure in the world,' Mrs Escobar was fond of saying, 'is being kind to other people.' Particularly, she might have added, when the other people are young and ravishing little creatures who worship you.

And there's Dostoievsky instead of murder, and D. H. Lawrence as a substitute for sex.

If I lived in splendid isolation, it was because I lacked the audacity to make war - even to make entangling alliances.