The Four-Gated City (1969)

Ihrem Wesen und ihrer Bedeutung nach steht diese Küste nicht nur für ein prekäres Gleichgewicht zwischen Land und Wassermassen; sie ist zugleich beredter Ausdruck eines ständigen Wandels, der sich gegenwärtig tatsächlich vollzieht, eines Wandels, der durch die Lebensprozesse von Organismen bewirkt wird.

They talked the talk of old ladies ... That people should not think them foolish because of this disguise they wore, white hair, graveyard faces, unsightly bodies, was a preoccupation with them all: this was the root of their tetchiness, their bad humours. ... They sat talking in the official language about time, life, death; but knowledge gave the barest phrases a depth which made it hard sometimes for them to meet one other’s eyes. One old lady might say to another, as they watched the young people flirting, the young married couples with their children, all those smooth bright bodies: ‘Yes, but they don’t know, do they?’ It was like a curse, or a spell.

Mit freundlichem Gruss etc.