the hazards of illicit love

...it was difficult for him to comprehend that two free adults without a past and living on the fringes of a closed society's prejudices had chosen the hazards of illicit love. she explained, "it was his wish." moreover, a clandestine life shared with a man who was never completely hers, and in which they often knew the sudden explosion of happiness, did not seem to her a condition to be despised. on the contrary: life had shown her that perhaps it was exemplary.

gabriel garcía márquez love in the time of cholera