The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories

when he put the gold band on my finger, I had, in some way, ceased to be her child in becoming his wife.

pounding of my heart mimicking that of the great pistons ceaselessly thrusting the train that bore me through the night, away from Paris, away from girlhood, away from the white, enclosed quietude of my mother's apartment, into the unguessable country of marriage.

he sensed a rare talent for corruption.