viii. dictated

[heloise]

Giulia said there are many kinds of kisses, weighed with promises or equipped to satisfy them. Any woman should know them all, she said.

I know now the kiss to promise and the one to fulfill it, like contracts and, perhaps, like marriages.

I have never kissed my husband, and I shall never. I have nothing to promise him.

[ Only she should never have said that. She holds her breath and tries to think, but what's done is done, so she shuts her journal instead. ]