Fragmentos - 44 Scotland Street

What was it like to be Matthew? This rather interested Pat, who often wondered what it would be like to be somebody else, even if she was not entirely sure what it was like to be herself. That, of course, is something that one is not sure about at twenty, largely because one is not yet sure who one is (...)

That's how people react to beauty, in a person or an object. We become intoxicated with it. We want to be with it. We want to possess it. And when that happens, we shouldn't be the least bit surprised, although we often are. It's an age-old issue. Our reaction to the beautiful occurs in the face of every single one of our intellectual pretensions. We may be very well aware that the call of beauty is a siren-call, but that doesn't stop it from arresting us, seizing us, rendering us helpless. A soul-beguilding face will make anybody stop in their tracks, in spite of themselves (...)

 44 Scotland Street - Alexander McCall Smith