“And she would weep. When he saw tears rolling down her face, he would forgive her.She was less certain whether she would forgive herself.”

“He stared at her fists and at her face and said with upset incredulity, "You promised me you would forgive me-""Forgive you,"Tatiana hissed through her teeth, tears streaming down her face, "for your brave and indifferent face, Alexander!" She groaned in pain. "Not for your brave and indifferent heart.”

“In her he saw possibility. In her he saw the future. And when she was ready for it, he would be, too”

“She hoped that her baby was happy and would be waiting for her when she herself left Botswana and went to heaven. Would Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni get round to naming a wedding date before then? She hoped so, although he certainly seemed to be taking his time. Perhaps they could get married in heaven, if he left it too late. That would certainly be cheaper.”

“My price was his oath that he'd never lay a hand on you again. I told him I'd forgive him in exchange for that."She wished he'd punched her in the gut. It would have hurt less. Not trusting herself to keep from falling to her knees with shame right there, she just stalked down the hall.”

“She did understand, or at least she understood that she was supposed to understand. She understood, and said nothing about it, and prayed for the power to forgive, and did forgive. But he can't have found living with her forgiveness all that easy. Breakfast in a haze of forgiveness: coffee with forgiveness, porridge with forgiveness, forgiveness on the buttered toast. He would have been helpless against it, for how can you repudiate something that is never spoken? She resented, too, the nurse, or the many nurses, who had attended my father in the various hospitals. She wished him to owe his recovery to her alone—to her care, to her tireless devotion. That is the other side of selflessness: its tyranny.”