El secreto

To compound this -all these unpleasant recollections to the contrary- so much remained of the old Bunny, the one i knew and loved. Sometimes when i saw him at a distance -fists in pockets, whistling, bobbing along with his springy old walk- I would have a strong pang of affection mixed with regret. I forgave him, a hundred times over, and never on the basis of anything more than this: a look, a gesture, a certain tilt of his head. It seemed impossible then that one could ever be angry at him, no matter what he did. Unfortunately, these were often the moments when he chose to attack. He would be amiable, charming, chatting in his old distracted manner, when, in the same manner and without missing a beat, he would lean back in his chair and come out with something so horrendous, so backhanded, so unaswerable, that i would vow not to forget it and never to forgive him again. I broke that promise many times. I was about to say that it was a promise i finally had to keep, but that's not really true. Even today i cannot muster anything resembling anger for Bunny. In fact, i can't think of much I'd like better than for him to step into the room right now, glasses fogged and smelling of damp wool, shaking the rain from his hair like an old dog and saying: "Dickie, my boy, what you got for a thirsty old man to drink tonight?"

One likes to think there's something in it, that old platitude amor vincit omnia. But if i've learned one thing in my short sad life, it is that that particular platitude is a lie. Love doesn't conquer everything. And whoever thinks it does is a fool. (...)

(...) Religious slurs, temper tantrums, insults, coercion, debt: all pretty things, really, irritants -too minor, it would seem, to move five reasonable people to murder. But, if i dare say it, it wasn't until i had helped to kill a man that i realized how elusive and complex an act a murder can actually be, and not necessarily attributable to one dramatic motive. To ascribe it to such a motive would be easy enough. There was one, certainly. But the instict for self-preservation is not so compelling an instict as one might think. The danger which he presented was, after all, not inmediate but slow and simmering, a short which can, at least in the abstract be postponed or diverted in any number of ways. I can easily imagine us there, at the appointed time and place, anxious suddenly to reconsider, perhaps even to grant a disastrous last-minute reprieve. Fear for our own lives might have induced us to lead him to the gallows and slip the noose around his neck, but a more urgent impetus was necessary to make us actually go ahead and kick out the chair.
Bunny, unawares, had himself supplied us with such an impetus. I would like to say i was driven to what i did by some overwhelming, tragic motive. But i think i would be lying if i told you that; if i led you to believe that on that Sunday afternoon in April, i was actually being driven by anything of the sort.
An interesting question: what was i thinking, as i watched his eyes widen with startled incredulity ("come on, fellas, you're joking, right?") for what would be the very last time? Not of the fact that i was helping to save my friends, certainly not; Nor of fear; Nor guilt; But little things. Insults, innuendos, pretty cruelties. The hundreds of small anavenged humiliations which had been rising in me for months. It was of them i thought, and nothing more. It was because of them that i was able to watch him at all, withouth the slightest tinge of pity or regret, as he teetered on the cliff's edge for one long moment- arms flailing, eyes rolling, a silent-movie comedian slipping on a banana peel- before he toppled backwards, and fell to his death.


The Secret History
Donna Tartt