miniature secrets

quotes from atonement by ian mcewan

"a taste for the miniature was one aspect of an orderly spirit. another was a passion for secrets: in a prized varnished cabinet, a secret drawer was opened by pushing against the grain of a cleverly turned dovetail joint, and here she kept a diary locked by a clasp, and a notebook written in a code of her own invention. in a toy safe opened by six secret numbers she stored letters and postcards. an old tin petty cash box was hidden under a removable floorboard beneath her bed. in the box were treasures that dated back four years, to her ninth birthday when she began collecting: a mutant double acorn, fool's gold, a rainmaking spell bought at a funfair, a squirrel's skull as light as a leaf.

but hidden drawers, lockable diaries and cryptographic systems could not conceal from briony the simple truth: she had no secrets. her wish for a harmonious, organized world denied her the reckless possibilities of wrongdoing. mayhem and destruction were too chaotic for her tastes, and she did not have it in her to be cruel."

"for this was the point, surely: he would be a better doctor for having read literature. what deep readings his modified sensibility might make of human suffering, of the self-destructive folly or sheer bad luck that drive men toward ill health! birth, death, and frailty in between. rise and fall -- this was the doctor's business, and it was literature's too."

"soon there were only the sounds of steady breathing and snores. beneath him the floor still seemed to list, then switch to the rhythm of a steady march, and once again turner found himself too afflicted by impressions, too fevered, too exhausted to sleep. through the material of his coat he felt for the bundle of her letters. i'll wait for you. come back. the words were not meaningless, but they didn't touch him now. it was clear enough -- one person waiting for another was like an arithmetical sum, and just as empty of emotion. waiting. simply one person doing nothing, over time, while another approached. waiting was a heavy word. he felt it pressing down, heavy as a greatcoat. everyone in the cellar was waiting, everyone on the beach. she was waiting, yes, but then what? he tried to make her voice say the words, but it was his own he heard, just below the tread of his heart. he could not even form her face. he forced his thoughts toward the new situation, the one that was supposed to make him happy. the intricacies were lost to him, the urgency had died. briony would change her evidence, she would rewrite the past so that the guilty became the innocent. but what was guilt these days? it was cheap. everyone was guilty, and no one was. no one would be redeemed by a change of evidence, for there weren't enough people, enough paper and pens, enough patience and peace, to take down the statements of all the witnesses and gather in the facts. the witnesses were guilty too. all day we've witnessed each other's crimes. you killed no one today? but how many did you leave to die?"