Fragmentos - Corduroy Mansions

'No, I mean it. People think that everybody has been involved with somebody else, whatever their nature. They find it inconceivable that one might go through life never finding anybody. But you know something, Caroline? I think that's far more common than you would ever imagine. There are plenty of people in that position.' (...)

Poor Terence. Poor, dear, gentle Terence. He had been searching for something all his life -he said as much himself- and he had never found it. And that thing, of course, was love, although he never saw it that way. He said that he was looking for enlightment, for beauty; he saido that he was looking for the sacred principle that informed the world. And all the time he was looking for that simple thing that all of us look for; that we yearn for throughout our lives. Just to be loved. That was all. (...)

'Not many men have that', said Rupert. 'Most men have rather distant relations with their male friends. Whereas women are much emotionally engaged with their female friends. They love their friends. They're much better at that than we men are'. Gloria thought that Rupert was generalising rather too much: there were some men with a great talent for friendship; there were some, too, who were emotionally engaged with their friends to the same extent as were women. But then there were so many men who were, quite simply, lonely; who did not seem to know how to conduct a friendship. There were legions and legions of those. (...)

'I often have a bit of a cry myself. We all do. And it's nice when a man does. It shows .... welll, it shows he's in touch with his feminine side.' That, she thought even as she uttered the words, is a terribly trite thing to say; why should it be that weeping is feminine? We all weep, the only difference being that men often suppress their tears. (...)

Berthea looked at her brother and reflected on how we allow loneliness in others to escape our attention. The lonely are often brave, putting on the pretence of being content in their condition but all the time wanting the company of another. Was that how it was for Terence? Did he sit by himself in this morning room contemplating empty days in which there wold be nobody to speak to? Did he yearn for telephone calls that he knew would never come? (...)

There was a curious intimacy about the moment, an intimacy that had been promoted by the subject of their discussion. Talking about love, and God, and what people owed to one another had brought them to a point of close spiritual communion that he had never before shared with a lover; it was a stripping away of everything, because one could not conceal anything in such a conversation. It was a conversation about essentials - the sort of conversations that mourners sometimes have after a funeral when for a few moments the reality of death brings people together in mutual appreciation of the simple gift of life. (...)

 Corduroy Mansions - Alexander McCall Smith