Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

“We had maintained the bond between our two stories, but by subtraction.  We had become for each other abstract entities, so that now I could invent her for myself both as an expert in computers and as a determined and implacable urban guerrilla, while she, in all likelihood, could see me both as the stereotype of the successful intellectual and as a cultured and well-off woman, all children, books, and highbrow conversation with an academic husband.  We both needed new depth, body, and yet we were distant and couldn’t give it to each other.”

-Elena Ferrante, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, translated from Italian by Ann Goldstein