"Ah, there should be a young man, ein schone Junge carrying Blumen, a bouquet of roses. There should be cold Rhine wine and Strausswaltzes, and on the long way home kisses in the shadow of an archway, like a Cinderella."

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The weapons that were once outside sharpening themselves on war are now indoors there, in the fortress, fragile in glass cases; Why is it (I'm thinking of the careful moulding round the stonework archways) that in this time, such elaborate defences keep things that are no longer (much) worth defending?

— Margaret Atwood