“Now the line was drawn. Lucy had never thought that one of the fiercest battles of her life would be fought over a breakfast table, with quiet words carefully chosen.”

“Something he knew he had missed: the flower of life. But he thought of it now as a thing so unattainable and improbable that to have repined would have been like despairing because one had not drawn the first prize in a lottery.”

“The war had been a daily thought, a continual consciousness in her life for two years, but never a real presence. Battles were things that were fought somewhere else, won somehow, by someone, and lost by someone else. Now as she stood by her own door and listened to the cannons, it was with a chilling, dreadfully full and clear realization that men were out on the field beneath that gray cloud taking each other’s lives.”

“The battle lines are drawn, priyatama. The more formidable the foe, the sweeter the victory.”

“That execution will take place here." She runs her fingertips over the table beneath her. "On this table. I thought it would be interesting to show you.""I knew what would happen when I came here," I say. "It's just a table. And I'd like to go back to my room now.”

“Yet all we had was here and now, and here and now was always where the struggle toward goodness had to be fought. Toward virtue, morality, uprightness, order: call it what one liked. A long ever-recurring battle.”