"She had been sixteen then, and very beautiful. Small, but so well-muscled and calm that her body seemed possessed of a secret, as if her bones, her flesh, her blood concealed within them some essence, the secret of time or of life itself, a secret that could neither be told not translated into any language, since it was beyond words." p. 9

"My homeland," says the guest, "no longer exists. My homeland was Poland, Vienna, this house, the barracks in the city, Galicia, and Chopin. What's left? Whatever mysterious substance held it all together no longer works. Everything's come apart. My homeland was a feeling, and that feeling was mortally wounded. When that happens, the only thing to do is go away. Into the tropics or even further."
"Even further? Where?" Asks the General coldly.
"Into time." (p.92)

Then she looked up--do you remember her eyes? She had a way of looking up that turned the world to brilliant daylight-- (p. 149-50)

"Yes, words come back. Everything comes back, words and things go round in a circle, sometimes they circle the entire and then they finally return to their starting point and something is completed," he says calmly. (p. 153)