Луна и шесть пенсов. Узорный покров

Каждый из нас одинок в этом мире. Каждый заключен в медной башне и может общаться со своими
собратьями лишь через посредство знаков. Но знаки не одни для всех, а потому их смысл темен и неверен. Мы отчаянно стремимся поделиться с другими сокровищами нашего сердца, но они не знают, как принять их, и потому мы одиноко бредем по жизни, бок о бок со своими спутниками, но не заодно с ними, не понимая их и не понятые ими. Мы похожи на людей, что живут в чужой стране, почти не зная ее языка; им хочется высказать много прекрасных, глубоких мыслей, но они обречены произносить лишь штампованные фразы из разговорника. В мозгу их бурлят идеи одна интересней другой, а сказать эти люди могут разве что: "Тетушка нашего садовника позабыла дома свой зонтик".

"I had no illusions about you," he said. "I knew you were silly and frivolous and empty-headed. But I loved you. I knew that your aims and ideals were vulgar and common place. But I loved you. I knew that you were second-rate. But I loved you. It's comic when I think how hard I tried to be amused by the things that amused you and how anxious I was to hide from you that I wasn't ignorant and vulgar and scandal-mongering and stupid. I knew how frightened you were of intelligence and I did everything I could to make you think me as big a fool as the rest of the men you knew. I knew that you'd only married me for convenience . I loved you so much. I didn't care. Most people, as far as I can see, when they're in love with someone and the love isn't returned feel that they have a grievance. They grow angry and bitter. I wasn't like that . I never expected you to love me, I didn't see any reason that you should, I never thought myself very lovable. I was thankful to be allowed to love you and I was enraptured when now, and then I thought you were pleased with me or when I noticed in your eyes a gleam of good-humoured affection. I tried not to bore you with my love; I knew I couldn't afford to do that and I was always on the look-out for the first sign that you were impatient with my affection. What most husbands expect as a right I was prepared to receive as a favour."

"Each of us is alone in the world. He is shut in a tower of brass and can communicate with his fellows only by signs, and the signs have no common value, so that their sense is vague and uncertain. We seek pityfully to convey to the others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to accept them, and so we go lonely, side by side but not together, unable to know our fellows and unknown by them. We are like people living in a country whose language they know so little that, with all manner of beautiful and profound things to say, they are condemned to the banalities of a conversation manual. Their brain is seething with ideas and they can only tell you that the umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house."