Our calm merged into desire and our desire into calm. We hardly noticed what was going on; as in a dream, one movement led to the next. We seldom touched one another and never kissed; our way of caressing was to lie side by side, breathing in and breathing out. I expressed my tenderness by talking a lot, Claire hers by listening to me and saying something from time to time.
Peter Handke, Short Letter, Long Farewell, 1972.
