Dogs of Summer

You could see it in the children. Their intelligence was frightening. And they had a freedom which we envied. There were so few restraints upon them. So few expectations. Then at the age of eleven or twelve they would cease being children. They lost their childhood overnight and they had no youth. They became very serious. As if some terrible truth

It was a tragic romance. Maxamillion was an old man who falls in love with a child and waits for her to grow up, only to die of old age on her eighteenth birthday.

Grace Macaulay, then: seventeen, small and plump, with skin that went brown by the end of May. Her hair was black and oily, and had the hot consoling scent of an animal in summer. She disliked books, and was by nature a thief if she found a thing to be beautiful, but not hers. She didn’t know she couldn’t sing. She was inclined to be cross.

Je vivais dans les livres et ne pouvais comprendre que l'on fût différent de moi. Elle me demanda de lui prêter Gide, Barrès, Claudel dont je lui parlais tant ; ce qu'elle m'en dit ensuite me blessa. Elle avait un joli corps ; je la désirais très fort dès qu'elle retournait à Limoges. Quand j'avais passé deux heures avec elle, je souhaitais mourir,