How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
"I can't play with you like a little boy any more," he said slowly. "That's what you miss, Marie. You'll have to get some other little boy to play with." He stopped and took a deep breath. Then he went on in a low tone, so intense that it was almost threatening. "Sometimes you seem to understand perfectly, and then sometimes you pretend you don't. You don't help things any by pretending. It's then that I want to pull the corners of the Divide together. If you won't understand, you know, I could make you!" (2.8.35)
Well, here the dark side of youth rears its head: Emil desires Marie, and there's nothing he plans to do to stop it. All that carefree, youthful energy quickly turns into a force that can't be resisted for long.
Quote #8
When everything is done and over for one at twenty-three, it is pleasant to let the mind wander forth and follow a young adventurer who has life before him. (3.1.40)
Marie might be the essence of a youthful spirit, but her lifestyle doesn't exactly correspond. Stuck in her marriage to Frank, no wonder she's so taken with Emil's youthful vigor—on some level, it matches her own.
Quote #9
There was about Alexandra something of the impervious calm of the fatalist, always disconcerting to very young people, who cannot feel that the heart lives at all unless it is still at the mercy of storms; unless its strings can scream to the touch of pain. (4.1.30)
Here, the narrator really hones in on the opposition between Alexandra's "impervious calm" and the wild energy of youth.