“He had slowed the melody now to a sad, reflective circle of notes. Behind this basic structure, Elta was piling an increasing weight of harmonies, circling again and again to augment them. He thought it was like the weight of the past, the weight of memory, building and building until it seemed almost unbearable, and yet there was always room for more: another repetition, another variation. The clapping had long since died away and the audience was rapt and silent. Suddenly a clutch of despair squeezed his heart. How would he survive the rest of his long life? He was not yet very old, and yet he felt old. Like the Essa with the gray-streaked hair who had been carried raving off the ship at Avanue, and whose limp and pallid shape he’d tended unconscious until the day she woke to say ‘Minh’ to him in the same rich voice he remembered. “I feel so old, she had said to him once. How will I live the rest of my life? Then, he hadn’t really known what she meant, though he had understood. Now, he both understood and knew.” LifeAgePainDeathSadnessSorrowDespair Book:Black Wine Source: Black Wine
“The rest of the evening was a blessed blur. She spent it mostly in a chair alone, near the door, waiting, drinking the red wine and trying to forget the taste of the black mixed with whiskey coming back up. At home, she fell into bed and passed out immediately. She wakened with a headache, hours into the next day, angry with herself for her sullen behavior the night before. But her hand hadn’t noticed, and although their headaches were as bad as her they bore them cheerfully: the price, said Gata, of a good party. “Everything seems to have a price, thought Essa, and I seem to be broke all the time.” SadnessRegretBrokenDrunkHungover Book:Black Wine Source: Black Wine