[...] the more time you spend stuck in your head, ignoring the world, hungry for transcendence and distraction, the more superficial your life becomes. [...]
It's tempting to read this moment of disappointment, this moment when worship fails and transcendence collapses back into distraction, as cause for either condemnation or vindication. As grounds for condemnation, the moment of disappointment can be taken as more good evidence that the religious pro…
"He never could paint people," Sam whispers. "He always left them out. Painted everything empty. Even when he drew himself, he couldn't do features ..."
The figure turns and Thibault glimpses its faceless face. Empty. A faint graphite sweep where there should be eyes. Blank as an egg. A poor, co…
I saved Paris, Thibault makes himself think. Destroyed a new utter demon. I saved th world. He feels flat. Outside, the sunlight hits them differently than it did within the old city.
Is this it? Are they done?
[...] "The Führer himself," Virginie said heavily, "is an artist, after all." Reproductions of his barely competent watercolors, his hesitant lines, his featureless faces, his vacuous, pretty, empty urban façades, had circulated as curios in occult Paris. Virginie and Thibault shared a glance of …
