Tracy Chevalier

I had often seen him look at her, touch her shoulder, speak to her in a low voice laced with honey.

“She is facing us, but is looking out the window, down to her right. She is wearing a yellow and black fitted bodice of silk and velvet, a dark blue skirt, and a white cap that hangs down in two points below her chin.”

A painting in a church is like a candle in a dark room—we use it to see better. It is the bridge between ourselves and God.

His eyes locked with mine. I could think of nothing except how their grey was like the inside of an oyster shell.

When I did her look was a puzzle of anger held back, of curiosity, of hurt.

She was trying to understand what had happened to her daughter.

Four sets of eyes

wringing out laundry.

came to know Catharina better I understood that she wanted to hold on to the appearance of motherhood, if not the tasks themselves.

threw black looks at