The great evil, the dreadful evil, that which made war and slavery and all man’s inhumanity to man lay in the cool self-justifying ruthless selfishness of quite ordinary people, such as Biranne, and himself.
She did not really mind not altogether enjoying it in bed.
Looking toward the Polish Rider she met his calm tender gentle thoughtful gaze. She thought, what he sees is the face of death. He sees the silence of the valley, its emptiness, its innocence – and beyond it the hideous field of war on which he will die. And his poor horse will die too. He is courage, he is love, he loves what is good, and will die for it, his body will be trampled by horses’ hooves, and no one will know his grave. She thought, he is so beautiful, he has the beauty of goodness.
He did not read. This continued to amaze Ludens who could not imagine existence without reading.
There is no light where I am. If any comes it is not enlightenment but lightning.
She thought, I shall die of misery and pain.
She tasted for the first time honey-sweet and dangerous happiness: dangerous because, as she before long began to learn, precarious.
Then she thought, is this really all I have to look forward to, is this what I have to comfort myself with?
I must return to my freedom which I now realise is something so essential that it makes my love for you seem like death.
One must constantly meditate upon the absurdities of chance, a subject even more edifying than the subject of death.
She thought, this is the end of happiness, darkness begins here.
But the spark vanished, there was no longed-for recognition, no dawning sign of recovery. The love she had learnt in tending him was an enclosed love, muted and maimed, already mourning. They would never communicate now.
Only art explains, and that cannot itself be explained.
Could she endure it, the long vigil of death made visible?
Yes, I’ve endured so much, and you seem to think this means I will endure anything. It does not.
You say we don’t know the consequences of actions. But we don’t know the consequences of inactions either, and inactions are actions.
There are secret saints with strange destinies.
One’s capacity to forget absolutely is immense.
But my wants are huge, my desires are rapacious, I want love, I want the splendour and violence of love, and I want it now, I want someone of my own.
A great sword pierced Sefton’s heart. She too had loved Lucas with her own kind of deep secret love, and it seemed to her in this moment that, if he had asked her, she would have gone with him anywhere.