These days, everything seems to be about what to buy and where to sell. If someone writes a novel about this time, then it’ll be full of undies, panties, bras, and these peeps who search for Italian quality at the price of peanuts.

I had never seen Jonas up close before, so I studied him with curiosity. He differed from the others of his kind. His face was different, I decided. His hair was reddish, his skin pale and lightly freckled.

I sank into my reading. Before long, as I was turning page after page, to my own surprise I felt how all those powerful feelings – fear, superstitious forebodings and madness – quickly and easily drew me into their whirlpool, and I was astonished to find something I had always known was there but had not experienced for a long time rising in me: the truest, most natural sensations long forgotten, coming alive and freeing themselves.