“The sun came suddenly from behind a rain cloud, flooding the room with glorious light that wavered on the walls like water. Camilla’s face burst into glowing bloom. A terrible sweetness boiled up in me. Everything, for a moment—mirror, ceiling, floor—was unstable and radiant as a dream. I felt a fierce, nearly irresistible desire to seize Camilla by her bruised wrist, twist her arm behind her back until she cried out, throw her on my bed: strangle her, rape her, I don’t know what. And then the cloud passed over the sun again, and the life went out of everything.”
More from Donna Tartt
“Stay away from the ones you love too much. Those are the ones who will kill you.”
“Stay away from the ones you love too much. Those are the ones who will kill you.”
“Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.”
“But it’s so heartbreaking and unnecessary how we lose things. From pure carelessness.”