[ A huge bubble of excitement swells up in her chest and she can feel a whole mess of words on her tongue ready to spill out -- how the sakura petals are perfect symbols of both the transience and decay of the sisters' social status, how Taeko is one of the few brazen and progressive characters of her time whose behaviour still retains its shock value, how the wordplay in the title so delicately weaves together the themes of decay and the potential for new life. But she swallows it all back. Alice's only just started reading and she said herself, she doesn't understand it completely. The last thing she needs is for Yuri to infodump all her own myriad opinions.

So instead, she smiles and forces herself to give a somewhat abbreviated version. ]

Exactly! Decline and stagnation. Everyone keeps longing for the past but they spend so much time looking backwards, it's impossible for them to build a new future.