Woman's Metamorphosis: Parallel Lives

"I can see nothing but an unmitigated vast stretch of unimaginable solitude and chaos. One devastated neighborhood after another. One forlorn, dim moment of stillness leads to more destruction. Suddenly, I now hear an ululating, wailing, deafening howl, whose dizzying synchronicity pierces through me and thereafter unravels in an all-encompassing expansion wave...Amidst the raging, terrific noise, I can now hear also the squealing shriek of scurrying rats and the swirling racket made by hundreds of bloodied vultures fighting over the spoils of half-eaten carcasses of human bodies and partially eaten dogs strewn all over the cobblestones of Avenue de Saint-Cloud on the western edge of what had been Paris." ("The Face of Paris")