How we cite our quotes: (Paragraph)
Quote #7
The angel went dragging himself about here and there like a stray dying man. (12)
As the angel spends more time with the family and grows older, his condition gets more and more pitiful. Eventually, they all just wish he would just go away. That's not exactly a PC reaction to the elderly, but it's—we hate to say it—probably something familiar to anyone who's had to take care of a very elderly and sick family member.
Quote #8
He could scarcely eat and his antiquarian eyes had also become so foggy that he went about bumping into posts. All he had left were the bare cannulae of his last feathers. (12)
It's hard to imagine an angel growing old like a human, but this one does it just like the best of our great-grandfathers: he goes blind, and loses almost all his hair.
Quote #9
He remained motionless for several days in the farthest corner of the courtyard, where no one would see him, and at the beginning of December some large, stiff feathers began to grow on his wings, the feathers of a scarecrow, which looked more like another misfortune of decrepitude. (13)
Even when the angel starts to get some new feathers in, they just look like another part of his aging process. Lucky for him, this lets him fly—LOL—under the radar, and he's eventually able to escape—or die?—in peace.