Embezzled Heaven — Franz Werfel

"It is as if people had not the courage to form a vivid picture of their own immortality." - Jean Paul

"I knew Teta. She was an old woman, short and plump, with broad cheekbones and forget-me-not-blue eyes which had in them an alert, stubborn expression often mingled with distrust. As of her waddling gait, like that of some timid nocturnal animal anxious to escape from the dangerous proximity of human beings and reach the security of its lair. It could never have entered my mind that I should one day attempt to record the history of this old serving-woman who could only barely read and write. Yet now I am sitting here, at a strange table in an alien land, painfully evoking the memory of a world that has long been submerged into the past and in which the heroine played no more than a shadowy, subordinate role. "