Charles' conversation was as flat as a street pavement, on which everybody's ideas trudged past, in their workday dress, provoking no emotion, no laughter, no dreams. At Rouen, he said, he had never had any desire to go and see a Paris company at the theatre. He couldn't swim, or fence, or fire a pistol, and was unable to explain a riding term she came across in a novel one day. Wheras a man, surely, should know about everything; excel in a multitude of activities, introduce you to passion in all its force, to life in all its grace, initiate you in all mysteries! But this one had nothing to teach; knew nothing, wanted nothing. He thought she was unhappy; and she hated him for that placid immobility, that stolid serenity of his, for that very happiness which she herself brought him.

— Gustave Flaubert

#contentment #static #dreams