The emptiness and pointlessness of it all were like a physical force that robbed her of her strength; a prophecy of yet more terrible things to come, or the evidence of some ugly disease, undergoing a fundemental deterioration in a bewildered world of privation and disappointment.

He could not hide what he felt any longer and had taken her hand. She closed her eyes and smiled. He had imagined the same thing many times before. She was experiencing a feeling that she had forgotten existed: she was in charge of her own destiny.
He had let his eyes wander only over the surface of her life. They embraced each other, swaying slightly in the cold wind. He wanted to ask her about herself and had assumed an expression of sorrow at the prospect of soon losing her. She sat down and stared at this strange place she was in. The gentle light of the morning brought tears to her eyes. She lit up a cigarette and began to cry. She felt entirely alone and knew that she could not go on living.

She savoured the aroma of the words like a dream she would experience when she fell asleep. Wise and perceptive, his eyes gleamed as if a match had been struck behind them. He wanted to find a key to the mystery, but the rhythm of their work was repetitive; there was some other impulse within him struggling to be freed.
In the last stages of sleep she felt that she had jumped off a cliff and found that she could fly.