At dusk the lights in the country houses were yellow as the eyes of lions. My mother was the last empress of Russia, doomed and captive in her palace, and she moved from mirror to mirror striking poses of tragic beauty.
Outside in the darkness cars roared past, and maybe a driver saw those glittering windows beyond the oaks and thought to himself, “there’s a lovely house, how happy they must be,” not sensing my mother was there, sewing her up her dress with a diamond sliver.
Planet of the Blind 