But it is the knowledge of how contingent my unease is, how dependent on a baby that wails beneath my window one day and does not wail the next, that brings the worst shame to me, the greatest indifference to annihilation. I know somewhat too much; and from this knowledge, once one has been infected, there seems to be no recovering. I ought never to have taken my lantern to see what was going on in the hut by the granary. On the other hand, there was no way, once I had picked up the lantern, for me to put it down again. The knot loops in upon itself; I cannot find the end.
Brenda Fricker
I was covered in scars from the beatings, and she used to say it was a hockey. . . She'd apologize. She was on pain. I understand that now, but you don't when you are three and four and you're being beaten to death with a hoover.
