“Lucy was frightened, frightened near to death. Her voice choked, she could not breath, her limbs went numb. "This is not happening", she said to herself as the men forced her down; "it is just a dream, a nightmare". While the men, for their part, drank up her fear, revelled in it, did all they could to hurt her, to menace her, to heighten her terror. "Call your dogs!" they said to her. "Go on, call your dogs! No dogs? Then let us show you dogs!”

“Do you remember Vlek, who was such a good sheepdog that she and Jakob alone could drive a whole flock past you at the counting-post? Do you remember how Vlek grew old and sickly and could not hold down her food, and how there was no one to shoot her but you, and how you went for a walk afterwards because you did not want anyone to see you cry?”

“She does not reply. She would rather hide her face, and he knows why. Because of the disgrace. Because of the shame. That is what their visitors have achieved; that is what they have done to this confidant, modern young woman. Like a stain the story is spreading across the district. Not her story to spread but theirs: they are its owners. How they put her in her place, how they showed her what a woman was for.”

“Because a woman's beauty does not belong to her alone. It is a part of the bounty she brings into the world. She has a duty to share it.”

“And so when Mrs. Darling went back to the night-nursery to see if her husband was asleep, all the beds were occupied. The children waited for her cry of joy, but it did not come. She saw them, but she did not believe they were there. You see, she saw them in their beds so often in her dreams that she thought this was just the dream hanging around her still.”

“She didn't dare to look up, but she could feel their frightened eyes hanging onto her as she hauled the words in and breathed them out. A voice played the notes inside her. This, it said, is your accordion.”

“She still had her bad days, no question, when the black dog of depression sniffed her out and settled its crushing weight on her chest and breathed its pungent dog breath in her face. On those days she called in sick to the IT shop where, most days, she untangled tangled networks for a song. On those days she pulled down the shades and ran dark for twelve or twenty-four or seventy-two hours, however long it took for the black dog to go on home to its dark master.”