One half orange plus another half orange do not make a full orange again. And that is where my story begins. An orange that did not think itself good enough for a knife, and an orange that never dreamed of turning itself into a knife. Cut and be cut, neither interested me back then.
-- Agnès (/)

Importance: In the opening pages of the novel, Agnès conceptualizes herself and Fabienne as two halves of the same orange. Through this metaphor, she gestures towards the closeness and intimacy of their friendship; over the course of the novel, Agnès explicitly voices her wish to coalesce with Fabienne into a single person. Importantly, Agnès, as an adult, recognizes that two halves of an orange cannot “make a full orange again.” Despite their closeness, Agnès and Fabienne will never be able to collapse the boundary that separates their individual selves.

No, it is not...
-- Agnès (/)