Up there I seemed to be as much isolated from Paris as if I had been in--well, in Hampton Court.

It was almost impossible to write; I had things to think about: preoccupations, jealousies.

It was true I had a living to make, but that seemed to have lost its engrossingness as a pursuit, or at least to have suspended it.
The panels of the room seemed to act as a sounding-board, the belly of an immense 'cello.

There were never any noises in the house, only whispers coming from an immense distance--as when one drops stones down an unfathomable well and hears ages afterward the faint sound of disturbed waters.

When I look back at that time I figure myself as forever sitting with uplifted pen, waiting for a word that would not come, and that I did not much care about getting.