Cecily: He is in love with me; wrote love letters, of broken dreams and dead sisters and whisky irony and French poverty. He delivered orange juice and sweet meats to my door and then did not even ask to be let in. He is convinced I am going to marry him. One day. Of course, I drank the juice. I ate the sweet meats.

Alexander: Do you feel like a horrible human being? I am by no means saying that you are, but my own morbid curiosity demands that I ask.

Cecily: No. I do not. But I feel somewhat horrible for not feeling horrible. Somehow, all of the men who have sapped from me – stared at me, touched me, taking nothing but pleasure and leaving me as a shell – have validated this decision on my part. They are the portraits that have escaped the attic of my teenage imaginings and wander about the streets carrying my guilt. For it is they that have created me. And I am but a beautiful and reluctant monster who has become everything that her superficial fantasies of youth demanded. With none of the necessary detail to live a true life.